Preamble

The House met at a Quarter past Two o'Clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

WARRINGTON CORPORATION BILL [by Order]

Lords Amendments considered, and agreed to.

SOUTH SHIELDS CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

As amended, considered; Standing Order 205 suspended; Bill to be read the Third time forthwith [The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill read the Third time, and passed, with Amendments.

EAST GRINSTEAD GAS AND WATER BILL

As amended, considered; Standing Order 205 suspended; Bill to be read the Third time forthwith.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]

Bill read the Third time, and passed.

PARLIAMENTARY CONSTITUENCIES (ELECTORS) (ENGLAND AND WALES).

Address for Return,
showing, with regard to each Parliamentary Constituency in England and Wales, the total number of electors on the register now in force."—[Sir D. Somervell.]

Oral Answers to Questions — RUMANIA (GENERAL RADESCU)

Mr. Martin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what is the present situation of General Radescu in Bucharest.

The Minister of Education (Mr. Richard Law): I have been asked to reply. General Radescu left the residence of the British Political Representative in Bucharest on 7th May, after assurances had been given by the Rumanian Government that proper steps would be taken for his protection.

Oral Answers to Questions — POLAND

Provisional Government

Mr. Martin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any further information about the setting up in Poland of a Government representative of the various parties in Polish life.

Mr. Price: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, with a view to implementing the decision of the Yalta Conference, he will invite the Government of the U.S.S.R. to put forward names of persons living both inside and outside Poland, who, in their opinion, might be suitable candidates for membership of an enlarged Polish Government.

Mr. Law: Hon. Members will no doubt have seen the announcement issued this morning. Following upon the recent conversations between Marshal Stalin and Mr. Hopkins the Moscow Commission on Poland established by the Crimea Conference has resumed its work and has issued invitations to an agreed list of Polish leaders from within Poland and from abroad to consult under the auspices of the Commission on the composition of a Polish Provisional Government of National Unity in accordance with the Crimea decisions. These consultations will only be the first step towards the fulfilment of those decisions but it is the hope of His Majesty's Government that they may lead to the formation of a Government acceptable to all parties in Poland such as will command the recognition of all the great Powers.

Mr. Price: Should these conversations prove successful, as we all hope, will the Foreign Secretary reconsider the whole status of the Polish Government in London?

Mr. Law: Up till now we have been governed in this matter by the declaration on Poland of the Crimea Conference. Perhaps I ought to read to the House the relevant part:


When a Polish Provisional Government of national unity has been properly formed in conformity with the above"—
that is, the Agreement—
the Government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, which now maintains diplomatic relations with the present Provisional Government of Poland, and the Government of the United Kingdom and the Government of the United States will establish diplomatic relations with the new Polish Provisional Government of national unity and will exchange ambassadors, by whose reports the respective Governments will be kept informed about the situation in Poland.
That still governs our attitude.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Is the Polish Government in London a party to these new moves and in agreement with them?

Mr. Law: I think the hon. Member will have seen in the Press to-day the list of representatives who are going, and they do seem to us to be as fully representative of Polish feeling as we can hope to have at the present time. I do not think there are members of the London Polish Government.

Major-General Sir Alfred Knox: Will my right hon. Friend state whether these delegates will have their safey guaranteed by the British Government?

Mr. Law: I have no reason to suppose that their safety is in any jeopardy.

Mr. Driberg: Pending the conversations, in order to improve relations, will some of the Polish agencies in London be invited to refrain from publishing anti-Soviet propaganda at our expense?

Professor Savory: Can my right hon. Friend say whether the President of Poland has been consulted as being the only person entitled to appoint a Polish Government?

Arrested Leaders

Mr. Martin: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether any further information has been received from the Soviet Government on the Polish leaders under arrest in Russia.

Mr. Price: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affars whether in view of the increasing suspicion over the intention of the U.S.S.R. in Poland and Eastern Europe arising in part from the arrest of the 16 Poles, he will invite the Government of the U.S.S.R. to state in

greater detail than hitherto whether all the 16 persons are charged with offences; and if not, who are so charged and the nature of the indictments against them.

Mr. Law: The Soviet Government are well aware of the desire of His Majesty's Government for full information on this subject. The early release of these men would, I am sure, contribute to the success of the important consultations which will shortly begin in Moscow.

Mr. Martin: In view of the satisfaction which we all feel at the answer to the previous Question, could the right hon. Gentleman represent to the Soviet Government the great importance to Anglo-Soviet relations and the future organisation of world security of releasing these people?

Mr. Law: I am sure the Soviet Government are fully aware of our anxiety in this matter, but I will certainly see that what the hon. Member has said is brought to their attention.

Mr. Silverman: Can the right hon. Gentleman assure us that the Polish Government in London will themselves refrain from abusing the special powers that we have conferred upon them in relation to their army by arresting political opponents?

Mr. Speaker: That is another question.

Medical Supplies, Warsaw

Mr. Stourton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will take up with the Soviet Government the question of admitting representatives of the International Red Cross into Poland by the Government responsible, in order that medical aid and supplies for countering an outbreak of bubonic plague, typhus and typhoid, may be brought to Warsaw.

Mr. Law: His Majesty's Government are always ready to consider any suggestions as to how they might be of service in such matters. But they have not in the present case received any request from the International Red Cross Committee for assistance of the nature indicated by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Stourton: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind that there is an almost complete dearth of medical supplies in Warsaw and throughout Poland?

Mr. Law: I will certainly bear in mind the point that my hon. Friend makes, but


he must remember that we have at present no first hand opportunities of informing ourselves of conditions in Poland at all.

Mr. Shinwell: In view of the absence of accurate information on the subject, could the right hon. Gentleman do anything to suppress these Tory attacks on Soviet Russia?

Mr. Law: I cannot see that there is any attack on Soviet Russia.

Oral Answers to Questions — GREECE

Sentences

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that three Greek Resistance leaders, Movedas, Bourdis and Archis have been sentenced to death, whilst Premier Rallis has been sentenced to life imprisonment; and whether he will make an appeal for clemency to the Greek Government.

Sir Robert Young: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has considered a conference resolution from the general secretary of the Amalgamated Engineering Union urging him to take steps to secure a reprieve for certain Greek prisoners condemned to death; the terms of his reply; and whether he intends that action will be taken in conformity with the request made to him.

Mr. Law: These three men were all tried and sentenced by military courts under martial law, but since the Varkiza Agreement they have been re-tried by civil courts. The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Aberdare, who was then Under-Secretary of State, explained on 1st May in reply to a question that Monedas was convicted of murder by the Athens Criminal Court. Bourdis was convicted of three murders between 3rd December and 6th January. Only two witnesses were produced for the defence, neither of whom gave any evidence rebutting the charges on which Bourdis was convicted. Avcheris was suspected of being concerned in the murder of 93 hostages, but not all these charges were pressed. He was, however, convicted of a number of murders, including those of a woman and of a man over 70. In all three cases there has been ample evidence to show that the victims were not killed because they were traitors and collaborationists, and in the case of Avcheris this

was admitted even by some of the witnesses for the defence. In these circumstances, His Majesty's Government would not feel justified in intervening with the Greek Government to prevent the execution of the death sentence.

Sir R. Young: Is the statement which the right hon. Gentleman has now read the answer sent to the Engineers' Conference in London, the resolution having been addressed to the Prime Minister?

Mr. Law: I am not sure whether an answer has been sent, but no doubt it will be on those lines.

Mr. Shinwell: Why are the Government so ready to accept the opinion of the Greek Government on this matter when they are so reluctant to accept the opinion of the Soviet Government on another matter?

Mr. Law: It is not a question of accepting an opinion, but of accepting facts.

Miss Ward: Is it not a fact that the man over 70 was a British subject?

Mr. Law: I am not certain of that.

Mr. Shinwell: How is it possible for the right hon. Gentleman to speak about facts? All that he has in his possession is a statement made by the Greek Government. Has he made a thorough investigation into this matter in all its aspects?

Mr. Law: Yes, Sir. We have seen the record of the trial and the evidence given.

Sir Herbert Williams: Is it not the case that there are some independent newspaper men in Greece and none in Soviet Russia?

Trade Union Elections

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that the trade election returns for 128 Greek unions in Athens and Piræus up to 1st June, 1945, give a total of 25,066 votes cast for Ergas and 8,083 for Hadjidemetriou and all other groups; whether he will publish the report of the British Trades Union Congress delegation which was sent to Greece to supervise these elections; and whether he will make representations to the Greek Government to allow the unions all the normal freedoms allowed in a democracy.

Mr. Law: I understand that the newspaper of the Greek Communist Party in


Athens has quoted figures similar to those given by the hon. Member. I do not know on what these figures are based, and I am certainly not prepared to vouch for their accuracy. I believe that any figures given for the results of the Trades Union elections in Greece must for the present be somewhat speculative, but those quoted by my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary on 30th May were compiled from the official lists in the workers centres, and I think they are the best available at present. As regards the second part of the Question, I am not aware that the T.U.C. Delegation have written a report on the elections. A decision as regards publication would in any case, rest with the T.U.C. and not with His Majesty's Government, since the Delegation is not an official Government mission. As regards the last part of the Question, I have no reason to suppose that the Greek Government will attempt to limit the freedom of the Greek trades unions. I have seen no suggestion that they have tried to intervene or to tamper with the conduct of the elections.

Mr. Parker: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that Mr. Hadjidemetriou has resigned his post owing to lack of support in the election?

Mr. Law: I do not think that that affects the answer that I have given. I cannot vouch for the accuracy of the figures the hon. Member gives in his Question, and I think any figures at present must be highly speculative.

Mr. Shinwell: Would the right hon. Gentleman regard them as speculative if they had been the other way round?

Mr. Law: I do not see what the hon. Member means by "if they had been the other way round." I should not be at all surprised if they were the other way round.

Sir Malcolm Robertson: Is not Greece an independent State, and is it not the established policy of the Government never to interfere in the internal affairs of an independent State?

Sir H. Williams: Is the system of voting in Greece individual or block voting, as in Great Britain, where one political boss votes for 100,000 people?

Maintenance of Order (British Forces)

Mr. Parker: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he is aware that protests have been made in the last three weeks to the Greek Premier by the Liberal, Progressive, Socialist, Agrarian and E.A.M. parties against terrorisation by armed bands of Monarchists assisted by detachments of the National Guard; and whether he will take action to see that the British forces in Greece maintain order.

Mr. Law: I am aware that there have been a number of complaints about the activities of some sections of the National Guard and of Right Wing groups. I have no doubt that some of these complaints are justified, for, as my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary stated on 30th May, excesses are still being committed by extremists both of the Right and of the Left. The Greek Government are taking energetic steps to remedy abuses and to ensure that order is maintained with justice and impartiality. Full use is being made of British troops to assist in maintaining order and their presence is exerting a decisive influence on the situation.

Oral Answers to Questions — RUSSIAN - OCCUPIED COUNTRIES (BRITISH PRESS REPRESENTATIVES)

Mr. Stourton: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if his attention has been drawn to public anxiety at the complete black-out of news from Russian-occupied Eastern and Central Europe; and if he will impress upon the Russian Government, in the interest of maintaining good relations between the United Nations, the advisability of admitting an adequate number of British Press representatives to all the countries concerned.

Mr. Law: I think the Soviet Government knows the view of His Majesty's Government, which is that it will certainly help to maintain good relations between the United Nations if there are an adequate number of British Press representatives in all the countries concerned with proper facilities for free and objective reporting.

Mr. Stourton: Can my right hon. Friend assure the House that he will continue to impress on the Soviet Government that the present situation is intolerable and without precedent as between Allied Powers?

Oral Answers to Questions — EVACUATED BRITISH CHILDREN, UNITED STATES

Mr. Keeling: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs how many children of British nationality sent to the U.S.A. for the period of the war, either privately or under the Government's evacuation scheme, are still in that country; whether any obstacles have been placed in the way of their return; and how soon it is expected that all who wish to do so will return to this country.

Mr. Law: No children were sent to the United States under the Government evacuation scheme. Of those privately evacuated to that country, about 1,500 remain. No obstacles have been placed in the way of their return and over 2,000 of them have come back here. More could have returned had they been willing to leave. If the shipping situation does not deteriorate, they could all come back within about three months from the date of their application for passage.

Oral Answers to Questions — SYRIA AND LEBANON

Major-General Sir Edward Spears: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he has any statement to make concerning General Oliva Roget's allegations that Colonel Stirling and Wing-Commander Marsack were British agents who fomented disturbances in Syria.

Mr. Law: The activities of all British representatives in Syria are under the control either of His Majesty's Minister at Damascus or, in the case of serving officers, of the Commander-in-Chief, Middle East. As my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made clear in his statement of 5th June, British influence has been used throughout not to foment disturbances, but on the contrary to prevent them. I am confident that none of our representatives have acted contrary to the directives of His Majesty's Government, as alleged. So far as I am aware, no evidence whatever has been produced in support of these allegations.

Sir E. Spears: Is my right hon. Friend aware that General Roget, who makes these allegations, served against us in the Syrian campaign of 1941 under General Dentz, who has since been condemned to death?

Mr. Law: If that is so, it does not make the allegations any more true.

Sir E. Spears: That is exactly my point.

Mr. Stokes: Will the right hon. Gentleman make clear to the French, Government that it is French activities which have been causing all the trouble?

Sir E. Spears: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has any official figures of the total French and Arab casualties, respectively, between 19th May and 1st June in Syria and the Lebanon.

Mr. Law: No accurate statistics of casualties in Syria as a whole are yet available. My hon. and gallant Friend will remember that the Prime Minister gave some figures for Damascus in the statement which he made on 5th June.

Sir E. Spears: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he has made any inquiries with regard to the allegations of looting by French and Senegalese and shooting of hostages during the recent disturbances in Damascus and with what results.

Mr. Law: According to information reaching me from both official and other sources, there was some looting toy French troops on 1st June. The fact that the French troops appeared to be out of control was one of the reasons why the Commander in Chief, Middle East, ordered that they should be confined to barracks. I have no confirmation of stories that any hostages were shot.

Sir E. Spears: Is disciplinary action being taken against the French troops guilty of these scandalous activities?

Mr. Law: That will be a matter for the French military authorities.

Oral Answers to Questions — NAZI WAR CRIMINALS

Major Vyvyan Adams: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs the precise action to be taken by His Majesty's Government when war criminals or prominent Nazis seek asylum in neutral countries.

Mr. Law: I have nothing to add to the reply which my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary gave to the hon. Member for Maldon (Mr. Driberg) on 28th March. My hon.


and gallant Friend will recall that this was to the effect that the Allied Governments would take joint action appropriate to the circumstances of each case.

Major Vyvyan Adams: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the whereabouts of Ribbentrop has been ascertained; whether he is in custody; and what is the next step proposed to bring Goering to justice.

Mr. Law: The answer to the first part of my hon. and gallant Friend's Question is "No, Sir." As regards the latter part the discussions which, as the Prime Minister stated in his reply to my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Brighton (Lieut.-Colonel Marlowe) on 29th May, are taking place to decide the best procedure for dealing with the major war criminals have not yet been concluded.

Major Adams: Is it quite clear that we share a joint responsibility with other countries in bringing to justice all these individuals, whatever their whereabouts, who have caused so much suffering to humanity?

Mr. Law: I think that responsibility has always been accepted.

Commander Locker-Lampson: Is it possibly true that Herr Hitler was married?

Oral Answers to Questions — FOREIGN SERVICE (WOMEN)

Miss Ward: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he now has any further statement to make on the admission of women to the Foreign Service.

Mr. Law: Yes, Sir. It has been decided that a Committee should be appointed as soon as possible to consider the question of admitting women into the Foreign Service.

Miss Ward: In view of the fact that applications for entry into the Foreign Service have to be in by 1st December next, will my right hon. Friend make every effort to speed up the proceedings of the Committee?

Mr. Law: Yes. I shall do nothing to delay them.

Captain McEwen: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind always, that this is an entirely unsuitable occupation for women?

Oral Answers to Questions — INTERNATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS

Miss Ward: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can make a statement on the decisions taken at San Francisco with regard to communications in the post-war world.

Mr. Law: No decisions as to post-war communications have been taken at the San Francisco Conference, which is confined to drafting the Charter of the new Security Organisation.

Oral Answers to Questions — CZECHOSLOVAKIA (TRANSFER OF GERMANS)

Mr. G. Strauss: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether the expulsion of the Sudeten Deutsch population from Czechoslovakia is a unilateral action on the part of the Czechoslovak Government; and whether it has the endorsement of the major Allied Governments.

Mr. Law: His Majesty's Government have no detailed information as to the extent to which such, expulsion is taking place. They consider that the transfer, to whatever extent may be agreed on, of Germans from Czechoslovakia to Germany should be carried out in an orderly fashion as an integral part of the plans of the controlling Powers for the post-war settlement of Germany. They have made this view known to the other controlling Powers and to the Czechoslovak Government.

Mr. Strauss: Does the right hon. Gentleman propose to take any steps in the matter, because, according to official information coming from Czechoslovakia, there is wholesale forcible transference of the Sudeten Deutsch population from Czechoslovakia? Is not such unilateral action dangerous, and should not action of this sort be taken by the Peace Conference?

Mr. Law: I have made the attitude of the Government clear in my answer. With regard to wholesale evacuation of population to which the hon. Member refers, as far as I know, no such evacuation has taken place in the part of Czechoslovakia where United States troops are. As to the part where Soviet troops are, I have no confirmation of the reports.

Miss Rathbone: Will it not be a great embarrassment to the Allied Powers in control of Germany if large numbers of Sudetenlanders are suddenly driven into Germany, possibly without even being allowed to bring their movable possessions with them; how in that case are their necessities to be provided for?

Mr. Law: The point which the hon. Lady has raised is probably one of the reasons why we have adopted the attitude which I described in my original answer.

Captain Duncan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this is not a unique transfer of population and that it has been done by the forcible removal of Bessarabians from Rumania into Soviet Russia?

Mr. Edmund Harvey: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the distinction between those Sudetens who loyally supported the Czech Government against Hitler, and who were never Germans but were previously Austrian subjects, and those Germans who came into Bohemia from Germany?

Mr. Law: It is not for me to bear it in mind, but I have no doubt that the Czechoslovak Government will do so.

Mr. Stokes: Will the right hon. Gentleman keep in close touch with Sudeten Germans in this country, to ascertain what is really going on?

Mr. Silverman: Arising out of the original answer, can the right hon. Gentleman say whether any transfers have already been agreed upon, and, if so, by whom?

Mr. Law: The phrase I used was not "transfers that had been agreed upon," but "transfer to whatever extent may be agreed on." That gives the hon. Member the answer.

Mr. Silverman: Have there been any transfers agreed upon now?

Mr. Law: Not that I am aware of.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL AIR FORCE

Runways and Hangars (Use)

Lieut.-Colonel Sir Arthur Heneage: asked the Secretary of State for Air if before pulling up concrete runways, he will make sure that the runways cannot

be used for other purposes and that the cost is not prohibitive or unnecessary; and will he also leave hangars standing where they are of use for parking places for vehicles or agricultural implements.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Air (Mr. Quintin Hogg): My hon. and gallant Friend's suggestions will be borne in mind.

Mr. Stokes: Will the hon. Gentleman make sure that the First Lord of the Admiralty knows what he is doing in this matter, so as to prevent an unwarrantable waste of public money in making Admiralty aerodromes where suitable ones exist next door?

Butlin's Camp, Filey (Repair Work)

Mr. Spearman: asked the Secretary of State for Air how much R.A.F. labour has been employed in repair to Butlin's camp at Filey; and why similar facilities have not been made available for the re pair to hotels in Scarborough derequisitioned by his Ministry.

Mr. Hogg: No Royal Air Force personnel have been employed at this camp under official arrangements. I understand that during May some 20 airmen worked at the camp in their spare time. This casual employment was accepted without authority and has now been stopped.

Education Officers

Flight-Lieutenant Teeling: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he proposes announcing any scheme for the release of education officers, as only those serving at home are enabled to resign since they are civilians and as R.A.F. education officers abroad, having no knowledge when they will be released, feel that the Ministry of Education are filling all the best jobs with men who have not gone abroad.

Mr. Hogg: Yes, Sir. It is proposed to promulgate a scheme shortly. With regard to the second part of the Question, education officers serving with the R.A.F. at home enjoy no advantages in respect of release or resignation compared with those serving overseas.

Mr. Ede: Will the hon. Gentleman apply to these men the arrangements recently circulated by the Minister of Education in his memorandum with regard to Class B releases?

Mr. Hogg: Class B releases are not primarily a question far my Department.

Temporary Personnel (Release)

Lieut.-Commander Bell: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can give an assurance that the rate of release of temporary members of the R.A.F. will not be allowed to fall substantially behind the rate of release in the other Services.

Mr. Hogg: As stated in the White Paper on Re-allocation of Manpower, release will necessarily proceed at different rates in the three Services owing to military considerations. It is impossible at this stage to estimate the extent of the variations between the three Services but every effort will be made, consistent with operational requirements, to keep them to a minimum.

Lieut.-Commander Bell: Am I to understand from the reply, that the main factor in the speed of these releases is not transport facilities, as we were recently informed?

Mr. Hogg: I think that the main obstacle to these releases is the existence of the Japanese war.

Mr. Bowles: Will men in the R.A.F. who were voluntarily seconded from the R.A.F. to Ministry of Aircraft Production factories, have whatever time they spent in the factories taken into account in their release group?

Mr. Hogg: The hon. Gentleman should refer to the Debate in the House on 18th April, when the matter was fully discussed.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: When will the public know the rate at which these men are to come out, for all they and the R.A.F. know at the moment is that the rate of flow will be much slower than for the Army?

Mr. Hogg: The hon. Member may have seen in the newspapers two or three days ago the absolute maximum which it was possible to state at the moment.

Mr. Bowles: What was disclosed in the Debate of 18th April in answer to my Question?

W.A.A.F. Parachutists (Gratuities)

Miss Ward: asked the Secretary of State for Air whether he can now make a statement on the payment of gratuities to the W.A.A.F. who were parachuted into France before D-Day.

Mr. Hogg: Yes, Sir. Gratuity will be payable.

Miss Ward: Am I right in assuming that all girls who have undertaken that type of work will receive gratuities from their various Departments?

Mr. Hogg: I do not think the hon. Lady will be justified in making any assumptions except those which are covered by her Question and my answer.

Release, Repatriation and Leave

Mr. Driberg: asked the Secretary of State for Air if, in view of the concern felt in the R.A.F. about the retention of clerks and other tradesmen beyond the time at which they would normally be released in their age and length of service groups, he will now make a comprehensive statement on the differences between R.A.F. and Army practice in such matters as release, repatriation and 28 days' home leave for men serving in the B.L.A. and the C.M.F. before they are posted to the Far East.

Mr. Hogg: As the reply is necessarily rather long, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate a statement in the Official Report.

Mr. Driberg: Can the hon. Member say—in view of the apprehension that has been caused in the Air Force by the speech of the Secretary of State for War last Friday, which was in the main satisfactory as regards the Army—whether the last point in my Question will be dealt with in that long answer?

Mr. Hogg: I think that it will be dealt with.

Following is the statement:

Release,

In order that the Royal Air Force may carry out its tasks and fulfil its commitments, release must proceed at a rate different from that of the Army. Further, in view of the high degree of specialisation in the Air Force, it will be necessary to deal separately with the different branches, categories and trades; whereas, in the Army, age and service groups will normally be released without regard to trades, etc.

Repatriation.

The normal tour of overseas duty in the Royal Air Force is three years for married personnel unaccompanied by their families


and four years for single personnel and married personnel accompanied by their families. As announced by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War on 8th June, the tour for Army personnel is to be reduced to three years and four months in the Far East and to four years elsewhere as shipping and other means of transport offer.

Leave before Posting to the Far East.

A minimum of fourteen days' leave is granted to Royal Air Force personnel before posting to the Far East. Subject, however, to operational exigencies and the phasing of drafts every effort will be made to increase this leave to correspond with that granted to Army personnel, which as stated by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War on 8th June, is now 28 days.

AIRCRAFT PARTS (CHARGES)

Mr. Glenvil Hall: asked the Minister of Aircraft Production if he is yet in a position to state the result of the inquiries into the allegations against Whatton and Sons, Limited, Wolverhampton, of excessive charges for aircraft parts; and, if not, will he give the approximate date when the inquiries will be completed.

The Minister of Aircraft Production (Mr. Ernest Brown): The examination into the prices charged by this company is being pressed forward with all speed, but I am at present unable to say how soon it will be completed.

Mr. Shinwell: Will it be announced by the Spring?

Mr. Brown: I hope before the Autumn.

Mr. Hall: Will it be months or years or only weeks?

Mr. Brown: The hon. Member is asking for a guess, and I should say about the end of August.

Mr. Pritt: Can the right hon. Gentleman give any guarantee that it will be done before he leaves office?

Oral Answers to Questions — ROYAL NAVY

Royal Naval College

Mr. Muff: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will expedite the return of the Royal Naval College to its

home and thus enable the officers and teaching staff to carry on the training of the cadets with greater efficiency than can be done in improvised premises.

The First Lord of the Admiralty (Mr. Brendan Bracken): Yes, Sir. But the work of reconditioning the college must take its appropriate place in the list of building priorities.

Royal Dockyards

Captain Plugge: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will indicate the general policy with regard to employment and work at the Royal Dockyards during the remainder of the war.

Mr. Bracken: So far as can be foreseen all the Royal Dockyards will be fully employed in making alterations and additions to His Majesty's Ships for the prosecution of the war against Japan and in carrying out repairs.

Captain Plugge: In view of the great increase in the size of the Royal Navy and in its fighting power, will my right hon. Friend give an undertaking that there will be no large scale reduction of employment in the Royal Dockyards after the Japanese war?

Mr. Bracken: That is a question of Government policy. Perhaps when the Election is over my hon. Friend will put a Question down.

Captain Plugge: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether, now that this country is no longer subject to enemy attack, he will at an early date give publicity to the achievements of the Royal Dockyards at Chatham and elsewhere during the war against Germany, indicating the number of men employed, what has been produced and repaired there, and what they have suffered from air raids.

Mr. Bracken: Yes, Sir. It is hoped to issue a statement shortly.

Captain Plugge: Will ray right hon. Friend in due course give full recognition to the magnificent contribution made by the Chatham Dockyards workers to the war effort?

Mr. Bracken: Yes, Sir. In due course proper recognition will be paid to the part played by the Chatham Dockyards.

Mr. Shinwell: Can we be assured that the right hon. Gentleman does not detect in any of these Questions any propaganda?

Captain Plugge: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he will set up a committee at an early date to consider the most efficient way of operating the Royal Dockyards after the war and providing adequate inducements to highly qualified engineers and other technicians to remain in these Royal Dockyards rather than go to private firms; and whether, in this connection, he will consult the Admiralty Industrial Civil Servants' Federation and other appropriate bodies, representing employees in these establishments.

Mr. Bracken: The efficiency of the dock, yard management, and the appropriateness of the rates of pay and conditions of service authorised for dockyard employees, are matters which the Admiralty constantly watch. As my hon. and gallant Friend is aware, machinery exists for regular consultation between representatives of the employees and Departmental officials both at the dockyards and at headquarters. This is intended to secure the greatest measure of co-operation in the pursuit of efficiency and of the well-being of the employees. I see no early need to set up a special committee to supplement these arrangements.

Captain Plugge: Could the First Lord suggest some better method than appointing this committee to see that these highly qualified engineers and technicians will receive wages in keeping with those prevailing in private yards?

Mr. Bracken: I am very pleased to see this excellent Tory doctrine so fully explained in a supplementary question, but I have no intention of appointing another committee to deal with work which is being thoroughly well done at the present time.

Revised Form S.272

Mr. Driberg: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether the revised form S.272 has now been distributed to all H.M. ships and naval shore establishments; if he is aware that this poster was still displayed in its unrevised form at the Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth, on Monday, 28th May; and what steps he proposes to take to implement the undertaking on this matter given by his Department two months ago.

Mr. Bracken: The distribution of the revised form S.272 has been delayed by printing difficulties. It is now being distributed and copies are displayed at the Royal Naval Barracks, Portsmouth. Instructions to ensure that the undertaking to which my hon. Friend refers was carried out, were issued shortly after the Debate on the 29th March.

Mr. Driberg: Does it really take two months to get these posters printed, and is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the position was still as described in the Question at this very important establishment only a few days ago?

Mr. Bracken: I am afraid that apparently it has taken a long time to get these papers printed, but the work has been done now. I am sorry about this hold-up but apparently it has been inevitable.

Mr. Driberg: A calculated bottleneck?

Foreign Service (Home Leave)

Captain Lord Irwin: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty if he will state the amount of leave to which Navy personnel are entitled after two years' service abroad before being posted to the Far East.

Mr. Bracken: On return from two years foreign service a rating would be granted the foreign service leave dut to him. This would amount to 28 days on the basis of seven days leave for each six months of service abroad. When the man's turn came for drafting abroad, he would be given a further period of drafting leave which for a man detailed for the Far East would be 14 days. Depending upon the time the man had spent in home waters in the interval, and on his employment, he might well have had a further period of leave under normal home service rules.

Lord Irwin: Will my right hon. Friend look into cases of men who have not received the minimum period of leave if I send particulars to him?

Mr. Bracken: Yes, Sir.

Reservists (Release)

Lieut.-Commander Bell: asked the First Lord of the Admiralty whether he can give an assurance that the rate of release of reservists in the Royal Navy


will not be permitted to fall substantially behind the rate of release in the other Services.

Mr. Bracken: No, Sir. The Fleet has been reminded that, as stated in the White Paper on the Re-Allocation Plan (Command 6548), it will not be possible to keep the rate of release in the three Services in step. Apart from the heavy obligations of mine clearance and of redeployment against Japan, the large number of officers and men in the Royal Navy over the age of 50 will from the start cause the rate of release of the under-50's to fall behind that of the other Services.

Lieut.-Commander Bell: Will my right hon. Friend bear in mind the dissatisfaction that is felt in the Royal Navy at this inequality following so soon after the transfer of large numbers of men into the ranks of His Majesty's Army?

Mr. Bracken: I believe this arrangement has been settled after a great deal of consultation over the past year, and I certainly am not prepared to interfere with a decision which was taken long before I came to the Admiralty.

Mr. Astor: If the R.N.V.R. are not going to get released on the same conditions as in other Services, will the right hon. Gentleman see that they get the same opportunities for promotion into higher ranks as do the Reservists in the Army?

CHAIRMAN
(Vacant).



VICE-CHAIRMAN
Mr. P. H. Westermann
Trade Commissioner for the Netherlands Indies in London.


Belgian Congo
Monsieur Th. Heyse
Civil Servant.



Monsieur Mikolajczak
Director, Société Générale des Minerals, Brussels.


Bolivia
Senor Don A. Patino, R
Patino Mines.



Senor Don J. Ortiz-Linares
Patino Mines.



Senor Don Juan Penarands
Civil Servant.



Mr. E. V. Pearce (Technical Adviser)
Consolidated Tin Smelters, Limited.


Malaya
Sir Gerard Clauson
Civil Servant.



Mr. V. A. Lowinger
Civil Servant (retired).



Mr. W. J. Wilcoxson
Director, Straits Trading Co., Director, British Tin Smelting Co., Ltd.



Mr. J. H. Rich (Technical Adviser)
Director, Trino Mines.


Netherlands
Mr. P. H. Westermann
(See above).


East Indies
Mr. J. B. Peyrot
Billiton Company.


Nigeria
Sir Gerard Clauson
(See above).



Mr. Dermot J. Mooney
Director of various tin mining companies



Mr. J. Ivan Spens?
Director, London Tin Corporation, Limited.


Consumers' Panel
Mr. E. H. Lever
Chairman, Richard Thomas &amp; Co., Ltd.


United States Government representative.
(Temporarily Vacant.)



United States industry representative
(Temporarily Vacant.)

Mr. Bracken: I shall bear that suggestion in mind and will do everything I can to facilitate it.

INTERNATIONAL TIN COMMITTEE

Mr. Stokes: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will state the names of the International Tin Committee; and also the connection of any of them with the tin trade.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Colonel Oliver Stanley): As the answer is rather long I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Stokes: Might I ask whether any Member of Parliament is on this Committee?

Colonel Stanley: No Member of our Parliament. I am not sure whether some of the foreign representatives are members of their Parliaments.

Mr. Stokes: Might I ask whether the right hon. and gallant Gentleman expects reinforcements from the Treasury Bench to this Committee when the present Government lose office?

Colonel Stanley: I would not speculate on such a remote future.

Following is the answer:

The membership of the International Tin Committee is as follows:

WEST INDIAN NURSES (TRAINING SCHEME)

Dr. Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is now in a position to announce particulars of a scheme under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act for the nursing training of West Indian nursing recruits for four years in a composite nursing course in Britain; to what extent and by whom this training scheme has already been put into operation; and whether he has approached the voluntary hospitals with teaching schools attached with a view to their assisting the scheme.

Colonel Stanley: As the particulars requested are long, I will, with the hon. Member's permission, circulate in the Official Report a reply to the first two parts of the Question. I should like, however, to take this opportunity of expressing my gratitude to the hon. Member for the part which he has played in the successful institution of this scheme. As regards the last part of the Question, any such extension should, I consider, await the report, which will reach me within a few days, of the Committee which, under Lord Rushcliffe's Chairmanship, has been examining the training of nurses for work in Colonial territories generally.

Dr. Morgan: Whilst thanking the right hon. and gallant Gentleman for his very generous reference, might I ask whether that report will deal specifically with the question of securing for Colonial nursing aspirants training in the voluntary hospitals with medical schools attached?

Colonel Stanley: I have not yet seen the report, but it will cover the whole question of training nurses, and will undoubtedly cover that particular point.

Following is the statement:

Scheme for the Training of Eighteen West Indian Nurses Annually in the London County Council's Hospitals.

The London County Council in 1943 offered to accept, annually, for a period of four years, eighteen West Indian girls for a four-year course of general nursing training in the Council's hospitals. After consultation with the Comptroller for Development and Welfare and the West Indian Governments concerned, I gratefully accepted this offer.

Under the scheme, girls from Barbados, British Guiana, British Honduras, Jamaica, the Leeward Islands, Trinidad and the Windward Islands, are eligible for selection, provided that they satisfy the conditions laid down as to educational qualifications and medical fitness. Selection is made by boards set up in each Colony. The composition of these boards varies in the different Colonies, but it was agreed that in all cases the board should include the Director of Medical Services, or an officer holding an equivalent post, and the Resident Surgeon and the Matron of the chief hospital. I have suggested that the Governments concerned should consider the inclusion in each board of two non-official members.

Selections are submitted, before being sent forward to the London County Council, to the Medical Adviser to the Comptroller, who, if there are more candidates than vacancies, will be in a position to make recommendations for the allocation of the vacancies.

While it is proposed that, so far as possible, the most suitable candidates should be selected irrespective of the Colony from which they come, the requirements of the smaller Colonies will be kept in mind in the final selection of candidates. Under the scheme, no candidates will be eligible for selection from Colonies whose nursing standards may in future be accorded recognition, in the form of reciprocal registration, by the General Nursing Council in this country.

Selected candidates are required to sign a bond requiring them to serve, after satisfactory completion of training, for a period of five years in any West Indian Colony in which posts of appropriate status are available.

The London County Council house and feed the nurses in training and pay them at the usual rates. The Colonial Office is responsible for welfare arrangements and for passages from and to the West Indies. To meet the expenditure thus involved to provide outfit allowances and incidental expenses, and to supplement each nurse's earnings by an amount sufficient to enable her to meet reasonable personal expenses in this country, a free grant of £26,250 has been made under the Colonial Development and Welfare Act.

The first batch of seven student nurses began their training in London in December, 1944, and another batch is expected to arrive shortly.

Dr. Morgan: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he is satisfied with the present arrangements associated with the West Indian Nursing Training Scheme in Britain for the impartial selection and approval of West Indian applicants for inclusion in this scheme by means of insular selection boards; and whether, within a definite period of time, he will consider establishing a West Indian Federal Nursing Board carefully chosen mainly of non-official elements.

Colonel Stanley: I consider that the present arrangements are reasonably satisfactory. The question of appointing a Federal Nursing Board will be considered, with other possible modifications of the existing scheme, in the light of experience of the working of the present arrangements, which became effective only six months ago.

Dr. Morgan: When the right hon. and gallant Gentleman is reviewing this scheme will he have regard to the desirability for securing uniformity and basing his views on some further consideration of a Federal Board dealing with the whole question?

Colonel Stanley: I will certainly consider that. It is obviously important to get uniformity. At the present time, as the hon. Gentleman knows, we are trying to get it through the Comptroller's organisations.

Mr. Sorensen: Does the right hon. and gallant Gentleman think that such a scheme as this is at all appropriate for West Africa?

Colonel Stanley: I think we had better wait and see the general report on training as a whole.

UGANDA (INTERNED ALIENS)

Mr. Edmund Harvey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies how many aliens are still interned in Uganda; whether he can give particulars of their nationality; and whether any of them are segregated from others on account of their political views or on other grounds.

Colonel Stanley: The total number of aliens interned in Uganda is 1,145. This

total is made up of 967 Italians, 51 Germans, 101 other enemy aliens, 13 non-enemy aliens and 13 stateless persons. All these aliens are housed in one camp, but 940 of the Italians, who were evacuated from Ethiopia and are all males, are confined in a separate section of the camp. There is no other segregation.

Mr. Harvey: Does the right hon. Gentleman consider that some further segregation is desirable, in view of the very great difference between these categories?

Colonel Stanley: I will certainly consider that, but what I am anxious to see more than segregation is the return of these people.

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Is it the Government's purpose to send many of these Italians back to Italy and not back to Nyasaland, Rhodesia and other places where they were picked up?

Colonel Stanley: I do not think these Italians were picked up there. I think most of them came from Abyssinia.

COAL (USE)

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Prime Minister if he will appoint a commission to inquire into the better use of coal and the advisability of prohibiting the export of raw coal and the burning of raw coal in domestic grates, so as to retain the by-products to manufacture here.

The Minister of Labour (Mr. Butler): I have been asked to reply. The domestic use of all kinds of coal is at present being examined by the Fuel and Power Advisory Council, under the chairmanship of Sir Ernest Simon. It is not considered that prohibition of the export of coal in the raw state would be in the national interest, but the point which my hon. Friend has raised will be taken into account in connection with our coal export policy.

FOREIGN POLICY

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Prime Minister whether he has considered proposals made to him for the creation of machinery designed to secure a broad measure of co-operation and agreement between the main political parties, now and in the future, on matters affecting British foreign policy; and whether he favours such proposals.

Mr. Butler: My right hon. Friend agrees that it is in the country's best interests that there should he the widest possible measure of agreement on foreign policy between the main political parties. He considers, however, that the methods for securing such agreement would need to be adapted to the circumstances of the time, and in a matter of this kind there would be every advantage in allowing the machinery to develop in the light of experience and inclination.

Mr. Henderson Stewart: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman, does the Prime Minister contemplate, in this matter, using the functions of the Committee of Imperial Defence?

Mr. Butler: I think the terms of the answer I have given cover all the aspects of the question. I will not add to them to-day.

WAR GRATUITIES

Mr. Tinker: asked the Prime Minister if he is aware that the Government's scheme for war gratuities is not giving satisfaction to the Services; and will he give further consideration to it.

Mr. Butler: The answer to the first part of the Question is in the negative, and the second part, therefore, does not arise from it in any direct manner.

Mr. Tinker: I am rather sorry the right hon. Gentleman has had to reply because I wanted to get at the Prime Minister. This matter has been before the Prime Minister several times, and it is unfair that the Minister of Labour should now have to reply. Is he aware that there is great dissatisfaction among Service men about gratuities? I would like to know whether he has made inquiries on the subject.

Mr. Butler: I have given the information which is in my right hon. Friend's possession, and if my hon. Friend has any further information, I am sure my right hon. Friend will be pleased to have it.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. Gentleman explain why, to-day, he is answering Questions for the Prime Minister whereas, the other day, the First Lord of the Admiralty, who is sitting be-

side him, answered Questions for the Prime Minister? [Hon. Members: "No.".] What is the reason for this change? The Chancellor of the Exchequer also answered Questions for the Prime Minister. What is the reason for this? Why this demotion?

Colonel Sir Arthur Evans: May I ask whether the matter referred to by the hon. Member comes within the functions of the Opposition?

Mr. Shinwell: Can I have an answer to my question, Mr. Speaker? On a point of Order—

Mr. Speaker: I am saying something. The hon. Member must not rise when I am on my feet. This Question deals with war gratuities.

Mr. Shinwell: With great respect, Sir, I did not observe that you were speaking at the time. I have no desire to be disrespectful, but we are entitled to ask why, when Questions are addressed to the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister, for quite good reasons, is not available, other right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench should take turns about to reply.

Mr. Speaker: It has nothing to do with me.

Mr. Pritt: On that point of Order. Cannot we have an explanation, and in particular, could we be told whether the astonishing demotion of the First Lord has the approval of Lord Beaverbrook?

Mr. Gallacher: I would like to inform the Minister that hon. Members are continually receiving letters from serving soldiers and discharged soldiers on this question of gratuities, and to ask him whether he will consult the Secretary of State for War and have some of the correspondence sent to him on this matter. Will he look into it?

Mr. Butler: I have, of course, been in touch with the Secretary of State for War, and I am also aware that the system agreed to by the last Government appears to be the best possible.

Mr. Collindridge: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the volume of opinion in the country to the effect that equal danger shared by all ranks should warrant equal grants?

SCIENTIFIC INSTRUMENTS (MANUFACTURE)

Mr. Salt: asked the Prime Minister whether arrangements can be made for the well being of the scientific instrument making industry to become the responsibility solely of his own department; and whether he can make an early announcement as to how this industry is to be protected in the post-war period and enabled in particular to benefit from the closing down or control of the scientific instrument making industry of Germany.

Mr. Butler: This is all very important, but my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is of the opinion that it would be better to get the General Election over before arriving at final decisions.

Oral Answers to Questions — FOOD SUPPLIES

Wheat Surplus, Scotland

Captain McEwen: asked the Minister of Food what steps he is taking to remedy the difficulties of fanners in the South of Scotland who are finding it impossible to market wheat owing to the conditions of surplus which have arisen.

The Minister of Food (Colonel Llewellin): This surplus is now being purchased and stored by my Department.

Captain McEwen: Is my right hon. and gallant Friend not aware that the moment chosen for unloading this stock of wheat on to the Scottish market was a singularly unfortunate one, because it was at precisely the moment when Scottish farmers had an increased amount of wheat for sale, and will he see that it does not occur again?

Colonel Llewellin: I understand that we had an abnormal number of threshings by farmers which put additional wheat on the market, and because the millers themselves could not take it, my Department stepped in and stored it.

Co-operative Society Tea Party, Hitchin

Captain Gammans: asked the Minister of Food if any additional allocation of food was given to the Letchworth, Hitchin and District Co-operative Society for a special tea party given at Hitchin town hall on 9th June; and, if not, whether he will have inquiries made as to where the food was obtained.

Colonel Llewellin: The answer to the first part of the Question is "No, Sir." The normal supplies of food available to a catering establishment were used on the occasion to which my hon. and gallant Friend refers.

Captain Gammans: Has my right hon. and gallant Friend had any protest from the local traders on this subject.

Colonel Llewellin: It is the ordinary practice that catering establishments provide teas if they are allowed to do so. That is why they are catering establishments.

Mr. Shinwell: Does this Question not demonstrate that if you want more food you should join the local co-operative society?

Colonel Llewellin: I do not think it demonstrates that at all. What it demonstrates is that this co-operative society was working completely within the rules, but it does not mean that other caterers could not have provided this tea.

Captain McEwen: Was there any tinge of propaganda attached to that supplementary question?

Rations (Reductions)

Mr. Astor: asked the Minister of Food whether he will make a statement regarding the reason for the recent cuts in rations; and the possibilities of increases in rations at a future date.

Colonel Llewellin: The reductions in rations upon which the late Government decided, and which I announced in May, were due to a decline in world food production and an increase in demand. The fall in production is attributable to the continuing shortage of man-power in producing countries, to lack of fertilisers and to abnormal conditions of drought in the Southern Dominions, South Africa, South America and the Caribbean area. There has also been a decline in the pig population of North America. The increase in demand is due, in part, to the increased requirements of the liberated countries of Europe. With the return of men to food production throughout the world, output will increase, and with the demobilisation of men from the Services, military requirements will decline.

Mr. Astor: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that very little attempt


has been made to explain to the housewife the reason for this grievous reduction in her rations; and will he take steps to explain, in popular language, the reason for the change?

Colonel Llewellin: I am very sorry about that. I did my best. I gave a very long Press conference which was reported in practically every newspaper. It was also on the radio. I am doing, and will continue to do, my best.

Mr. Shinwell: Was it not remarkable that this cut in rations took place immediately after the change of Government?

Colonel Llewellin: That was not so at all. It was decided by the old Government, as any of the hon. Member's colleagues who were in that Government will inform him. It was decided by that Government and announced about a week after it had been decided, because of certain technical arrangements. It was a genuine decision. Any Government would have had to come to it, and I do hope that this really serious food question, with which the Ministry of Food has always tried to deal quite impartially, will not enter into the political arena, and that people will not make promises to consumers which, if they were fortunate enough to take my office, they know full well they could not perform.

Sir Percy Harris: May I assure the right hon. and gallant Gentleman that the public as a whole quite understand the position in Europe and this country, and rather resent the position being exploited?

Mr. Palmer: Would my right hon. and gallant Friend take steps to satisfy himself that the explanation he has given will have adequate publicity for the benefit of our troops overseas who are anxious about the effect of these on their families at home?

Colonel Llewellin: I will look into that point.

Dr. Haden Guest: Is the Minister able to say when he thinks it may be possible for him or his Department to review the food situation? Can he give us any idea how long it will take before any new factors can be brought under review?

Colonel Llewellin: In regard to any livestock products it is rather a long-term

business, especially in meat. Chickens and things of that sort can be reared as soon as more ships can be devoted to bringing feeding stuffs for them. We hope to do that. The oils and fats position will depend largely on how soon we can get back Malaya and the Dutch East Indies from whence large supplies of copra came before the war.

Local Holiday Weeks (Food Allocation)

Captain Lord Irwin: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware that some local authorities during Holiday Weeks at Home instituted by them in their districts, were in the past able to utilise the food from the works canteens of factories closed for those weeks; that those local authorities who have followed the recent advice given to spread these holiday weeks over a two-monthly period can no longer take advantage of this canteen food arrangement; and whether, in the special circumstances, he will make a special allocation of food to these local authorities.

Colonel Llewellin: The request to local authorities to extend the period of their summer entertainment programme was coupled with a request to industrial undertakings to stagger their workers' holidays. Where this is done it will be possible to utilise food from the works canteens under the arrangements to which my hon. Friend refers.

Lord Irwin: Where this arrangement has not been possible, will it be possible for the Minister to authorise local authorities to borrow small quantities of food from these canteens, which have these stocks?

Colonel Llewellin: I am afraid not, because the stocks are there against future demands.

Infant Welfare Foods (Cheltenham)

Mr. Lipson: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware that large stocks of orange juice and cod liver oil are going bad in Cheltenham; and will he agree to the request of the local food committee that these infant welfare foods should be sold at the food office for cash instead of by the present system of postage stamps.

Colonel Llewellin: The answer to both parts of the hon. Member's Question is "No, Sir."

Mr. Lipson: Is the right hon. and gallant Gentleman aware that under the present arrangements harassed and tired mothers are expected to wait in two queues, one at the post office and one at the food office, and that if he will adopt the suggestion in the Question, more children will benefit from these infant welfare foods?

Colonel Llewellin: I do not know anything about the post offices, but there are not normally queues in any of these welfare food sections of the food offices. The reason for payment being made in stamps is to save a vast accounting procedure. If we had to have accounting officers in the 12,000 distribution centres it would mean a tremendous increase in staff. Moreover, as soon as dried milk came under the same system the demand, in fact, increased.

Mr. Lipson: Will the right hon. and gallant Gentleman have another look at this matter to see if he can find another way in which the waste of these infant welfare foods can be obviated?

Colonel Llewellin: There is no waste. In Cheltenham there is only five weeks' supply of orange juice and rather more of cod liver oil. Both keep as long as that.

Herring

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Minister of Food if he can now report on the recent glut supplies of herring; and the steps taken to avoid repetition of wasted catches.

Colonel Llewellin: The comparatively small quantities of herring landed so far this season cannot be regarded as glut supplies, and I am not aware of any wasted catches. We have made considerable arrangements to kipper or cure surplus herrings.

Oatmeal

Mr. Henderson Stewart: asked the Minister of Food if he is aware of the shortage of oatmeal in various parts of Scotland; and what steps he has taken to prevent supplies leaving the country and to ensure larger production in the future.

Colonel Llewellin: Arrangements have been made to meet any temporary shortage of oatmeal by allocating supplies from Ministry stocks of imported oat products. Supplies are not being exported other than for the use of our Forces. The capacity of the industry is sufficient to meet requirements.

Mr. Stewart: Will the Minister explain this rather surprising shortage? Why did it happen?

Colonel Llewellin: There was a pretty bad oat crop last year. We have not been able to make as much of this oatmeal as normally because of this shortage. We took steps to get oat products from Canada to make up the required amount, and we are now putting them on the market.

Mr. Mathers: When oatmeal is exported from Scotland to England, and other foreign countries, will the Minister try to make sure that proper instructions are sent with it in order to see that it is properly cooked? In view of the shortage of supplies will the Minister try to see that English people do not add sugar to their porridge?

Colonel Llewellin: I quite agree, in reply to the latter part of that question, that sugar does spoil it. But I do not think we had better draw a line between Scotland and England as to exporting because Scotland would come off very much the worse if that line were drawn.

Mr. McNeil: Will the Minister take care that where there has been a temporary shortage of what I am told is called porridge oats, which forms a large part of infant dietary, provision is made to remedy that situation?

Colonel Llewellin: If the hon. Member has any information as to any place where there is this particular shortage, I will try to see that it is overcome.

SOAP SUPPLIES, LONDON

Mr. Astor: asked the Minister of Food whether he is aware of the continuing hardship caused by shortages of soap in London shops at the present time; and whether he will take steps to remedy this situation.

Colonel Llewellin: The reply to both parts of my hon. Friend's Question is "Yes, Sir."

MANUFACTURED PAPER (IMPORTS)

Mr. Wootton-Davies: asked the Minister of Supply why manufactured paper is to be imported from Sweden; and if


he will consider instead making paper from materials at present in this country or importing the raw material.

The Minister of Supply (Sir Andrew Duncan): Our first endeavour is to secure supplies of materials to enable production in this country to be increased to the maximum extent, but it is also necessary to take the opportunity of importing certain quantities of paper to supplement home production.

Mr. Wootton-Davies: Does not my right hon. Friend agree that this is the thin end of the wedge? We want work in this country not imported manufactured materials.

Sir Arthur Reed: Is the Minister aware that paper mills, through restriction of raw materials, have only been working up to 15 to 50 per cent. of their output during the war, and that there are hundreds of thousands of tons of wood pulp in Sweden ready to be shipped? Why does the Minister want to ship paper instead of the raw material?

Sir A. Duncan: We have made contracts and arrangements for shipping the pulp from Sweden, and as soon as shipping facilities are available the pulp will be shipped.

Sir William Wayland: Is it not a fact that farmers find great difficulty in selling their straw for the purpose of making paper?

Sir A. Duncan: No, Sir, it is not possible to make use of all that is available.

Mr. Gallacher: Will the Minister take note, and pass the information to the Prime Minister, that his supporters want State interference and State control?

Mr. Hammersley: Is it not a fact that there are a large number of industries in this country which require manufactured paper, and which have not been able to work at full capacity for many years; and will the Minister remember that it will help the provision of civilian requirements if we get this manufactured paper in quickly?

Sir A. Duncan: It is because of the need for getting this paper in quickly that we are importing now.

WAR FACTORIES, MERSEYSIDE (DEMONSTRATION)

Mr. Logan: I wish to ask the Prime Minister a question, of which I have given him Private Notice: Is he aware that today, in Liverpool, a demonstration of war factory workers of Merseyside is being held; that men and women workers, after years of service in the interest of the nation, are fearing dismissal, and they are anxious to know from the Prime Minister what security of employment the Government can offer them?

The Prime Minister (Mr. Churchill): I have not received notice of this Question.

Mr. Logan: With all due respect, the notice was handed to officials last night at 6 o'clock, addressed to the right hon. Gentleman by me, after I had referred the matter to Mr. Speaker.

The Prime Minister: I certainly have not had it. I am not in any way prepared to deal in detail with the very difficult, delicate and also immense questions connected with the function of women in the immediate post-war world. I imagine that many will seek release to retire to their homes. The arrival of the demobilised Army men will make great changes. I remember being much worried about this when I was Minister of Munitions at the end of the last war, when I had, I think, over 1,250,000 women under the direct control of that office. It all worked out quite all right for the actual moment; when men came back, the women, in many cases, gave up their jobs. My misfortunes did not begin until a year after that.

Mr. Logan: In the first place, my letter was addressed to the Prime Minister. I take it that the Prime Minister is in the House and that officials know the Prime Minister. Therefore, I cannot understand why this letter should go astray. The subject of the question I now ask the Prime Minister ought, as a matter of policy, to be in the mind of the Prime Minister, and he ought to be able to answer it, even though a letter has not been addressed to him. Having conformed to the rules of the House, and wishing to meet the desires of the people now meeting in Liverpool, may I ask the Prime Minister if he will attempt to allay their anxieties?

Mr. Speaker: The hon. Member must remember that he himself was alone responsible for seeing that the notice went to the Prime Minister.

Mr. Logan: If I hand a letter to the duly accredited representative who takes letters, is not that sufficient?

Mr. Speaker: I do not understand what the hon. Member means by "the duly accredited representative."

Mr. Gallacher: On a point of Order. This question is not one of women in industry, but of redundancy.

Mr. Speaker: That is not a point of Order; it is a point of argument. A point of Order must relate to the procedure of this House, and to nothing else.

Mr. Gallacher: The question is about a demonstration of 3,000 Liverpool workers, men and women, who are afraid of being dismissed. Surely the Government have a policy on redundancy.

The Prime Minister: The hon. Gentleman is one of the greatest employers of the policy of using a point of Order without any relation whatever to the rights of Members in that respect. I have watched him for a long time. He thinks he can always get in by saying that it is a point of Order. I would like to answer my hon. Friend the Member for the Toxteth Division of Liverpool—[Hon. Members: "No, Scotland Division"]—well, I was not far away; I should have said the Scotland Division of Liverpool (Mr. Logan) by saying how very sorry I am that the accident occurred. I take no responsibility at this stage for the accident, but the fact that it has occurred is patent. How it can be remedied is also patent. If my hon. Friend will put down this Question to-morrow, as a Private Notice Question, and if the Chair allows it, I will take steps now to receive from him particulars of the Question which he wishes to ask. He has only to repeat it, and I shall be, as ever, at his service.

Mr. Logan: I thank the Prime Minister, and I will put the Question down.

Mr. Thomas Fraser: Is the Prime Minister not aware that this ogre, unemployment, is beginning to rear its head in many parts of the country?

Mr. Gallacher: The hon. Member has had a deputation about it to-day.

Mr. Hammersley: If this demonstration was arranged yesterday, as we are informed, would it not have been the proper procedure to put the matter to the Minister of Labour for arbitration?

Mr. Speaker: That is not a matter for me. My duty is to see that the Question is in Order. That is as far as I am concerned.

GENERAL ELECTION (SERVICE UNIFORMS)

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman who leads the Opposition had the desire to put a Question on the Paper to me—[Hon. Members: "Speak up"]. We have all got to save our voices now. The question was whether I had any further statement to make with regard to the wearing of Service uniforms during the period of the Election. But it appears that as there is a Question on the subject on the Paper for to-morrow, that proceduce would not be in Order. Therefore, I fall back, with the indulgence of the House and of the Chair, on making a short statement as follows: After gathering views from many quarters of the House, including Service Members of distinction, many of whom do not wish to wear uniform as candidates, I propose to leave unaltered the regulations about the wearing of uniforms by candidates. This means that the old rule will hold good, that no one in uniform will be permitted to take an active part in political proceedings. However, as stated by the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday, members of the Armed Forces in plain clothes will be permitted to take part in meetings. I hope that that will meet with the wishes of the House, and that the House will realise that my whole endeavour has been to meet its wishes in an effective manner.

Mr. Attlee: Is it understood that members of the Services in uniform are allowed to attend political meetings and to ask questions, although they must not preside at the meetings or speak at the meetings in uniform?

The Prime Minister: That is quite right; except that it leaves open the question of whether asking questions takes a form which may be construed as taking an active part. No doubt we are not going to scrutinise each other very much in these matters, but there may be forms of


altercation, which I think should hot be left entirely outside the purview of the military authorities.

Mr. Attlee: In view of the fact that there seems to be general agreement with the course that is now adopted, what inquiries were made before the right hon. Gentleman came to a contrary decision? I understood that this matter has been given very careful examination, but I cannot think who was called into consultation. As far as I can make out, almost everybody in this House, ex-Service Members and Service Members, are all convinced that the right hon. Gentleman's present act is wise and that his other act was extremely ill-advised.

The Prime Minister: I am the person responsible, and it has never been any part of my submission to Parliament that I do not sometimes take a view which does not wholly accord with the view of the majority.

Major Vyvyan Adams: Is my right hon. Friend aware that this decision will avoid great confusion, and will give great satisfaction to many serving Members, and that what he has announced to-day is in direct conformity with an urgent memorandum issued by the War Office nearly three weeks ago? Is there any legal objection to photographs of candidates in uniform being used?

The Prime Minister: What my hon. and gallant Friend has said corresponds exactly to what he told me yesterday in another place, and it had an influence on me, coupled as it was with the views of a great many Members of this House who have won distinction, who said that they did not propose to wear their uniforms. I had thought that as up to the day of Dissolution people had been going about in uniform, Members probably would not wish to be suddenly debarred, but it appears that everybody likes to be debarred; so why not debar them? As to photographs, I cannot conceive that it would ever be considered an offence for a person in this country to have himself photographed for the purpose of encouraging his constituents, in any garb or portion of a garb which conforms to the ordinary ideas of decency.

Mr. Thurtle: May I ask whether under this rule which has just been announced

a soldier who happened to be on leave could knock at his neighbour's door and ask him how he was going to vote?

The Prime Minister: I should think, taking a shot at the question without having had the advantage of all the legal advice at my disposal, that canvassing outside the very narrow limits of friends and members of families would be "taking an active part." He can ask a man how he is going to vote, but if he did that several times over and then went on to a committee room and had him marked down it would be "taking an active part."

Mr. Shinwell: Is it surprising that my right hon. Friend has again changed his mind? Has he not been doing it for years?

The Prime Minister: I have found that to move constantly and change with environment, is one of the best ways in which man can put himself in relation to nature.

Mr. Pritt: Would the right hon. Gentleman like to comment on the remarkable change of attitude on the part of the Tory Party, which used to revile him, but now tries to cash in on him?

Sir William Davison: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware of the statement of the American philosopher who said that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds?

Mr. Glenvil Hall: Can it be made perfectly clear that so long as men do not interrupt too much they will be allowed, whilst in uniform, to ask questions? In peace time it was allowed, although possibly it was against the rules, and no harm ever came of it.

The Prime Minister: I should think this is just one of those many things which can be left to the discretion and good sense of the British people; and as I am answering a question on the subject I should like to say that in view of the general agreement on the course now adopted I think there is no need for me to be present, as I promised to be, at any discussion which may take place this afternoon. My right hon. Friend the First Lord of the Admiralty will undertake the responsibility.

Mr. George Griffiths: He is called the best First Lord since the right hon. Gentleman himself left the Admiralty and yet he has only been in the job ten minutes. Lord Beaverbrook said that last night.

The Prime Minister: That comes of our working so closely together.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: If any candidates wish to send out photographs of themselves in Army uniform, would it be possible to make provision that the letters on their shoulder straps should be shown in the case of those warriors, because a lot of those warriors really should have A.P.C. or R.A.S.C. on their shoulders?

The Prime Minister: I hope that those letters are not going to be spoken of in any spirit of disrespect in this House. The R.A.S.C. and the A.P.C. have proved their worth.

Mr. Mathers: In respect of photographs, is the Prime Minister setting aside the statement of the Secretary of State for War, that to circulate photographs for election purposes, while not illegal, would be improper?

The Prime Minister: We are now at the Election, or very near it, and anybody can have himself photographed in any dress or any posture he chooses and circulate the photographs to as many people as are interested in looking at him.

MESSAGE FROM THE LORDS

That they have passed a Bill, intituled, "An Act to authorise the Colne Valley Water Company to construct new works and to raise additional capital; and for other purposes."—[Colne Valley Water Bill [Lords.]

Also a Bill, intituled, "An Act to extend the limits for the supply of water by the mayor, aldermen and citizens of the city of Gloucester in the county of the city of Gloucester; and to make further provision with regard to their water undertaking; to provide for the inclusion of members of the council of the said city in the standing joint committee of the quarter sessions and the council of the administrative county of Gloucester; and for other purposes.—[Gloucester Corporation Bill [Lords.]

COLNE VALLEY WATER BILL [Lords]

Read the First time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

GLOUCESTER CORPORATION BILL [Lords]

Read the First time, and referred to the Examiners of Petitions for Private Bills.

BILLS REPORTED

NEWCASTLE - UPON - TYNE CORPORATION (TROLLEY VEHICLES) PROVISIONAL ORDER BILL

Reported, without Amendment, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills; to be read the Third time To-morrow.

MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL

Reported, with Amendments, from the Committee on Unopposed Bills (with Report on the Bill).

Bill, as amended, and Report to lie upon the Table; Report to be printed.

Orders of the Day — CONSOLIDATED FUND (APPROPRIATION) BILL

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, "That the Bill be now read a Second time."

Orders of the Day — CARTELS AND MONOPOLIES

3.38 p.m.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Two Motions appear on the Order Paper, one in the name of some of my hon. Friends and one in the names of hon. Members of the Liberal Party. The first one to which I want to direct attention reads:
That this House is of the opinion that His Majesty's Government should submit a White Paper to the House describing the scope and pre-war effects of monopolies, cartels, combines, proprietary concerns, trading associations
and asks that investigation shall be made as soon as possible. We consider that the Consolidated Fund Bill provides us with an opportunity of asking for a full investigation into the ramifications and operations of these concerns, and whichever party is returned after the General Election we consider that, as a result of the evidence we shall furnish this afternoon, such a full public investigation should take place. We are asking that whoever carries out this investigation shall have the full authority of this House to send for persons, papers and documents. To show the need for this public inquiry we shall furnish some evidence this afternoon, quite a small proportion of the evidence


that is available, and during this Election our party, in particular, will endeavour to focus the searchlight of public opinion upon the subject. A committee upon trusts which met in 1918 and issued its Report in 1919 reported:
We are unanimously of the opinion that it would be desirable to institute in the United Kingdom machinery for the investigation of the operations of monopolies, trusts and combines.
It is 26 years since that Report was issued, but to this day no action has been taken upon it. I should like the House to compare the failure to take action on that matter with the action taken against the trade union movement in 1927, and with the attitude of the Conservative Party towards trade unions in the recent consultations over the Trades Union Act.

Sir Herbert Williams: On a point of Order. I am not raising this because I am out of sympathy with the point which the hon. Member is putting, but he has drawn attention to action which was taken by the House in 1927. That was legislative action. I understand that to-day, on this Measure, we cannot discuss legislation but only administration, and I am raising this point at this early stage in order that others of us who may possibly catch your eye later on, Mr. Speaker, can have guidance as to how far we may go,

Mr. Speaker: The purpose of this Bill is the allocation of money towards the public services in this year, and, therefore, it is really out of Order to go-back, except perhaps for purposes of illustration, to what has happened in years past—what Acts have been passed by this House. Also, it is out of Order to go into the future beyond the purposes for which the money this year has been voted and into matters requiring legislation. That somewhat limits the Debate as far as this subject is concerned.

Mr. S. O. Davies: Is not my hon. Friend entitled to give to the House and to the country his reasons why there should be an investigation into the workings of cartels and trusts? I would say, respectfully, that I cannot see how any person could make out a case on a vast subject like this unless the history and the background of it were placed before the House. As one Mem-

ber I shall be pleased to get that information.

Mr. Speaker: This is the sort of subject which really does not come within the terms of the Consolidated Fund Bill, because, as far as I know, we are not voting money nor is money being spent for the purpose of investigating cartels. We are dealing with matters for which money has been voted by this House, but, of course, the background can be referred to.

Mr. Ellis Smith: I am fairly familiar with the rules and spent a long time last night in familiarising myself with them in order that I might keep in Order to-day, but I feel that I should have been lacking in my duty had I not pointed out the contrast in treatment of the people I belong to with the treatment of monopolists. Having said that, I would go on to point out that in this Bill we are providing £10,000,000 for the Foreign Office for embassies throughout the world and for a grant towards the British Council, and I shall produce evidence to show that had those people been carrying out their duties as most people in this country have done their duty an investigation would have been made long before now. In order to show the need for this investigation I would quote this from "The Economist" of 13th January, 1945:
It is undeniable that the extensive growth between the wars of restrictive and monopolistic practices has done incalculable harm to British industry by increasing its cost and lowering its output. Agreements to restrict output, to fix prices or to limit entry into a trade have been for the most part, informal, so that their full extent is unknown, but their effect can be felt only too well even though it cannot be measured.
That is a statement from an orthodox publication, which I think provides us with the basis of the evidence that we shall place before the House. This war has speeded up monopoly development in this country, and, from now onwards,, the fundamental issue which the people of this country will have to face is whether the country is to be run for the benefit of the nation and the people or for the benefit of monopolists. All other issues are mere side issues, compared with that fundamental point. During the war, many of us have had to humilitate and restrain ourselves in order to make our contribution to the maintenance of national unity, and no one can point a finger of scorn at the contribution which


we have made. During the war, and particularly during the period when we stood alone, we had to carry out a policy of concentration of industry. This has resulted in the acceleration of the centralisation of capital, and all this has speeded up monopoly development, until we have now reached a situation when the pre war giants are now more gigantic than ever at any time in the past and are fundamentally challenging democracy. We are concerned to-day with the growth of monopolies, trusts, international cartels, trade associations, holding companies, nominee holdings—which covered up so much in this country before the war—inter-locking directorates—

Sir H. Williams: Shop stewards.

Mr. Smith: I hear the hon. Member, and I will put the contribution which shop stewards have made in organising production against the record of any hon. Member sitting on that side. There are unified contract forms, quantity and quality production, restriction of output by all kinds of restraint, secret trade information, the watching of proposed changes in legislation, the stabilising of the economic position of certain trades at the expense of the national interest—these are the indictments we lay this afternoon against the monopolies of this country.
In 1932, there were 2,000 trade associations in the country. Let me remind the House of the relatively high dividends paid by light industry between the two wars. This had its effect upon the home market and prevented our people from obtaining the full benefits of mass production. At the same time, it resulted in a discouragement of trade, and high profit margins meant that labour had a low share in the products of industry, which must tend to restrict the demand for consumption goods, since wages are more fully and freely spent than other forms of income. The policy of trade associations between the wars was the policy that I have just briefly indicated. This, too, had a serious effect upon the home market. The inequality of the distribution of income and wealth, fixed prices above the economic necessity, restriction of output—all these, simultaneously, robbed the people of the benefits of modern industry, undermined the home market, guaranteed profit for the few and protected inefficiency at the cost of the nation.
We have now reached a position when this country is in the grip of the monopolies to a greater extent than any other country in the world, and the fundamental political issue will be whether they are to continue to run the State and influence the Government or whether the State is to be controlled by the representatives of the people, for monopoly organisation and the real national interests are incompatible and irreconcilable. Monopoly strikes at the roots of harmony between the peoples of our country. Those of us who passed through the industrial disputes, and are still smarting under the economic whipping we received, through no fault of our own, from 1920 to 1929, can never forget the bitter experience we had.

Sir H. Williams: What about 1929 to 1931?

Mr. Smith: I do not mind these interruptions, but, if they are to be constantly made, they will be replied to. I want to make my contribution within a limited time in order to place the evidence before the House so that we can reason with one another to show that, in the national interest, it is necessary to have a full investigation, and, if I am to be constantly subject to this kind of thing, the responsibility for the length of my speech will not be on my shoulders. Monopoly practices not only strike at the roots of national harmony but also at those of international harmony, and, therefore, monopoly internal and international leads to strife, international rivalries, and, as sure as we are present here to-day, if Britain continues to go along the road of monopoly development, it is only a matter of time before we are involved in another war. The classic country, so far as monopoly development is concerned, was Germany. The number of cartels in Germany in 1896 was 250; in 1930, it had grown up to 2,100, and these are the people who gave rise to Hitlerism in Germany. It was the monopolists of Germany, and also others in many other countries, that brought Hitler into power. On page 258 of "I Paid Hitler," Thyssen, a man who ought to be in the dock with Joyce, Hitler and all the others, wrote:
The I.G. Farbenindustrie helped the Nazis a great deal by paying for their propaganda abroad.
Thyssen, in his book, showed that Krupps, Siemens, Wulcke and the I.G. Farben-


industrie directors supported Hitler since 1927, and, after 1933, through carrying out the economic policy laid down by this book, monopolists' profits increased to the extent of 48 per cent. This brings me to this question, and to-day it is my turn. Since 1936 I have been jeered at and sneered at by many hon. Members who sit on that side—

Mr. Beverley Baxter: We never jeered at the hon. Member; we always liked him.

Mr. Smith: My hon. Friend will remember that, in the other House, I stood there a lone figure—[Interruption]—raising the serious issue of how Ribbentrop was carrying on in this country and put down Question after Question until November, 1943. These Questions were put because of the great concern of thousands of people living in the Manchester area. They had seen German Nazis brought to Trafford Park, Swinton and other places, and they knew the espionage that was taking place, but no action was taken at that time. In reply to a Question, the President of the Board of Trade admitted that the men involved in many of these transactions, by their company interests, damaged our country, and, therefore, there is further evidence to prove that the time has arrived when there should be a full investigation into this question. We are not asking the House only to accept our word for it. I propose to give an extract from a book written by the Assistant Attorney-General of the United States and issued only this year. The book is in the Library and can be read by any hon. Member. On page 243—

Sir H. Williams: What is the title?

Mr. Smith: "A Challenge to a Free World," by Wendell Berge, and this is what he says:
Cartels are trusts magnified to an international scale. In mobilising for wax, we discovered, almost too late, that they were responsible for shortage alter shortage of vital material. The facts are that they retarded technological advance in the introduction of important devices and products wherever such developments threatened their vested interests, despite the fact that national security would be jeopardised.
What took place in the United States also took place in this country, and every hon. Member who takes an interest in supply questions knows that we were in a very serious position in the first few

years of the war in regard to supplies of manganese, aluminium and necessary machines to carry out the production of aircraft, and therefore, we said that the men who had been responsible for negotiating pre-war agreements ought also to be made to appear before a public inquiry in order that they might answer for what took place. International cartelisation is the logical development of monopoly development which is taking place in this country at the present time. They control most of our raw materials that are necessary for the supply of our Armed Forces, and here is one of the biggest indictments which it has been my privilege to pick up. The latest International Labour Office publication on food control states:
The stimulus given to vertical, as well as horizontal, organisation in the food manufacturing and distributing industries, may, after this war, as it did after the last war, lead to a greater amount of amalgamation or cartelisation and an increased tendency for one, or a few large firms, to dominate a large branch of the industry to a greater extent than ever before. Additional measures may then be necessary after the war to control monopolistic practices.

Sir Herbert Holdsworth: Is not that the finest argument possible for individual enterprise?

Mr. Pritt: It is the result of individual enterprise.

Mr. Smith: Here is further evidence to show the serious position this country has to face. While our men in the Royal Navy, Mercantile Marine, Royal Air Force and the Army, and most other people, have been making their contribution during this war, firms have been making profits to this extent. The Unilever combine is a very complex association of firms in this country—and the hon. Member for South Bradford (Sir H. Holdsworth) will be interested in this. Unilever controls 14 grocery companies—that is free enterprise, private enterprise.

Sir H. Holdsworth: I am not advocating monopolies.

Mr. Smith: Unilever controls 24 soap companies, three oil cake companies, five fish companies, three African palm kernel companies and three canneries. And many hon. Members opposite have the audacity to talk about the small man when they themselves are responsible for the organisation of trusts of that kind.


Monopolists of this kind have simply got the people by the throat with regard to the importation of food into this country.

Sir H. Williams: Are they not all Liberals?

Mr. Smith: The hon. Gentleman ought not to be too provocative because he has also some interest in these concerns.

Sir H. Williams: No.

Mr. Smith: Last week a Debate on housing took place in this House, and I have already heard it said among ordinary people in many parts of the country—and it is only they that I am concerned about—that the House of Commons is making a too complacent approach to the question of houses. Those of us who have wives—as good wives as ever lived—can never forget those 10 years after the last war, when and in spite of our contribution in that war, we were waiting for houses. My hon. Friends are determined to see that none of our men who served in this war shall have to wait for that length of time for a house after this war. Last week the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Works stated, in reply to the hon. Member for The High Peak (Mr. Molson), that
in practice, the actual exercise of compulsory powers will usually not be necessary."—[Official Report, 7th June, 1945; Vol. 411, c 1126.]
He knows that that is not according to the facts. Here is an extract from what was said in the "Financial Times," not by a Labour man or a trades unionist. This is what Sir Malcolm Stewart said in the "Financial Times" in regard to that matter.

Sir H. Williams: Another Liberal.

Mr. Smith: There is little difference between Liberals and Tories nowadays. He stated:
An important problem is that of building costs. It is essential they should be reduced, otherwise the financial burden of subsidies will become intolerable…I would temper this freedom with one control, and that is of the maximum price so as to protect the consumer against exploitation.
The last Government sent a mission to the United States of America to investigate the methods of building and the costs of material in the United States. This is

their publication. I would advise every hon. Member to read it. It is entitled, "Methods of Building in the U.S.A. The Report of a Mission appointed by the Minister of Works." It shows that the standard of living of the building workers in America is far higher than it is in this country, that they are only working 40 hours a week, and yet the cost of building in the United States is far lower than it is here.

Sir H. Holdsworth: But the output is greater.

Mr. Smith: It is true that the output is greater. The hon. Member could not have assisted me better, even if he had desired, than by that interjection. Why is output greater? It is because they have adopted a scientific policy of mechanised industry in order to obtain the maximum production, whereas in this country the industrialists have preferred to develop parasitism and spend the profits on themselves rather than put them back into the industry in order to mechanise the industry. The biggest indictment against hon. Gentlemen who supported the between-the-two-wars policy is to be found in the young Tories' publication, "Tools for the next Job." That is the biggest indictment that could be built up of the policy between the two wars and the hon. Member reminded me of it by his interjection. They show here the serious effect of the price of materials, and as a result of seeing that I made some investigations and found that this was due in the main to every material that goes into the construction of a house being controlled by a trade association. If anyone doubts that, I have the material here to prove it and I will give the name, if necessary, of every trade and association in the building industry and of the people who in their groups put profit before houses for the people. I have gone into the rules adopted by some of these people. The rules of one organisation read as follow:

"(1) The object of the association is that of raising prices and keeping up the price to the buyer of goods and articles made or supplied by its members.
(2) This shall be done by means of pooling arrangements, so controlling production that prices will rise naturally and inevitably."
The Committee on Trusts reported as a result of their inquiry in 1919, and in spite of that these trading associations have been able for 25 years to exploit our fellow


countrymen, and the result is that the people have not the houses that they should have had. Against this background the Conservatives still have the audacity to talk about free enterprise. The Prime Minister in his inner soul knows that things are different from those he talks about on the wireless. I would like hon. Members to ask themselves whether that great man, the late President Roosevelt, would have been a party to this kind of thing. That man, who died loved by the common people of the world, would have taken action to deal with this kind of thing. Since 1914 the industrialists of this country, with their allies the Conservative Party, have almost eliminated enterprise in this country, and at the same time they take steps to cripple public enterprise whenever suggestions are made for bringing about efficient public enterprise. Sir George Burt, a well known public-spirited man in the building industry, wrote:
I do not know of a material used in a house in which the selling price is not controlled by a combine or a ring.
The same thing is taking place in front of our eyes now in spite of the patriotism of our people. Furniture combines and trusts are now being formed, particularly in the industrial areas, where they are getting a grip on furniture factories, and the result will be very serious unless steps are taken to deal with it. The same applies to the distribution of pottery, and well may many people ask, "Where is Britain going?" in view of the evidence that I am providing this afternoon.

Sir H. Williams: There has not been any evidence, only allegations.

Mr. Smith: I am giving the evidence to the House and in regard to allegations, the hon. member can consider the matter in that light, but fortunately, they have all been statements from Government publications in the main. Just as this development is taking place, so the Foot proposals for the coalmining industry will equally lead to the monopolisation of the mining industry. The same applies to the cable industry, and to most industries in this country. If hon. Members opposite still have any doubt about the evidence, let them be good enough to turn up in the Library the indictment laid in America. It shows in the publication I have in my hand that Du Ponts, the I.C.I, of this country and the I.G. of Germany did not

consider the interests of their countries at all, but were responsible for agreements which kept people by the throats in different parts of the world. I have no time to quote the indictment which can be made but, in my view, many of the people responsible for these operations ought to have been tried in court, or by a tribunal long before now.

Mr. Colegate: Is the hon. Member aware that he is talking as if the indictment to which he refers has been accepted by the court, and has been proved correct?

Mr. Smith: As far as I am concerned, I accept most of the indictment, because I have taken careful steps to check it.

Mr. Colegate: What steps?

Mr. Smith: If the hon. Gentleman is not prepared to accept it, then, all I would ask of him is to support us in our demand for a public inquiry so that these people can be brought before an inquiry.

Mr. Colegate: Does the hon. Gentleman suggest that every allegation in America should be accepted here and that this House should give its time to investigate everything which is alleged in America?

Mr. Smith: Does the hon. Member object to a full public inquiry being held?

Mr. Colegate: It would be a waste of time.

Mr. Smith: Perhaps the hon. Member will be good enough to consider whether some of this evidence ought to go before a public inquiry. I am placing the evidence before the House for consideration, and if the personnel of the present House of Commons is not prepared to accept the evidence, perhaps the personnel we shall have in the new Parliament will be prepared to accept it. [An Hon. Member: "Never."] I have here a report of court proceedings in a case during which it transpired that as a result of an agreement between I.C.I. and other concerns in this country a pipe-line 27 miles long was constructed at a cost of £80,000 in order to carry caustic soda into the sea rather than distribute it to the people of this country. One could go on giving illustration after illustration of what has been done. There is one final point in regard to that matter. I shall never forget putting a Question to the Home Secretary


on 23rd March, 1944. I asked him the nature of Mr. Howard's business while in this country. I do not want to trouble the House with the answer. I went on to ask:
Is it not a very serious state of affairs that the Home Secretary, who is responsible for giving permission for people to visit this country, is not aware of this man's business? Is it not a fact that this man was representing powerful world monopolies, including, indirectly, the I.G. of Germany?
As a result of that Question the hon. Member for Gravesend (Sir I. Albery) asked if it were not a breach of Privilege for Members to make imputations against private citizens. Mr. Speaker answered—and it affected me at that time because I did not like this kind of thing—as follows:
Every hon. Member must make himself responsible for his own statements.
I went on:
May I say that I would he the very last person to make an imputation of this kind unless there was substance in it.

Sir George Jones: Will the hon. Member read the Home Secretary's answer?

Mr. Smith: I will give the answer. The right hon. Gentleman replied that Mr. Howard paid a number of brief visits to this country between February and September, 1939. Then, after Mr. Speaker had spoken, I said in regard to that:
I would be the very last person to make an imputation of this kind unless there was substance in it."—[Official Report, 23rd March, 1944; Vol. 398, c. 1048.]
On the following day an article appeared in the "Daily Herald," the writer of which had acted as private secretary to this man. He showed what this man was doing in this country before the war and even during the war. If anyone has any doubts about this, let him read "How I Financed Hitler," "Hitler's Master-plan," and a number of other American publications. There he will find what was taking place in this country even up to the collapse of France.
Therefore we say that international cartels are one of the main obstacles to the expansion of world trade; they are a danger to the future peace of the world; they provide a basis for aggression, and they hinder the development of the home market. The Government have already stated that they are prepared to agree to a tribunal. So far as we are concerned,

we shall never be satisfied with a tribunal; what we want is a full investigation. The people responsible for these pre-war agreements ought to be brought before the bar of a public inquiry. At the present time, men belonging to us are being given time in Germany because they are seen drinking with other men. I am not taking objection to that, but we say that if it is right to give such men time, then these people responsible for negotiating those pre-war agreements which got us into the position they did should also be tried, in order that the people can see where they stand with regard to that.
The right hon. Gentleman who is, I understand, to reply for the Government made a speech a few weeks ago in which he said that the Conservatives stood for free enterprise in the great bulk of business which was necessary for our prosperity. What a joke all this talk about free enterprise would be were it not such a tragedy. The facts of the matter are that the monopolies, cartels, and trade associations have now got our country by the throat. Our country has proved by its war record that it can become greater than ever.
Just as we have made a great contribution to the world battle for freedom, so we can make a great contribution to the world development that will take place, but we shall never make that contribution to world affairs unless we approach our post-war problems in the same way that we have approached our war problems. Therefore, to-day we place this evidence before the House. We are asking for a full investigation and, so far as we are concerned, we have our constructive proposals to make for dealing with these problems but, owing to the Debate being limited by the Consolidated Fund, we are not able to make those constructive suggestions this afternoon. However, during the forthcoming General Election we shall put them before the country in the hope that they will use their intelligence in supporting scientific proposals for making this country greater than ever.

4.18 p.m.

Sir Herbert Williams: I have listened with great interest to but have not been impressed as much as usual by the speech of the hon. Gentleman the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith). He has spoken of evidence. I would ask him


tomorrow to read his speech carefully, when he will see that anything in the nature of evidence could have been confined within the space of three minutes, and even then it was very incomplete. He quoted from a document called "Germany's Master Plan." He would never have seen it if I had not given it to him. [Hon. Members: "Oh."] Yes, certainly—two out of the three documents he has quoted on this subject. I knew his interest in this subject and I gave them to him.

Mr. Ellis Smith: On a point of correction, Mr. Deputy-Speaker. What happened was that for many years, as my hon. Friend knows, I have put a series of questions on these issues. As a result I asked the Librarian to put these documents in the Library. It is true that the hon. Gentleman gave a number of hon. Members certain documents because of our growing interest in this matter.

Sir H. Williams: I presented the documents to the hon. Gentleman and one or two other hon. Members before a single document appeared in the Library, or the Librarian was asked to place them in the Library. I could easily check up my dates if I wanted to do so. It is just as well, because I have disapproved as much as anybody else of the regional agreements between firms in this country, firms in the United States, and firms in Germany which prevented us from exporting goods to those countries. That has been my main objection. But the hon. Member comes here with a very thin case, He belongs to the largest but one organised monopoly in this country—the Amalgamated Engineering Union, which exists, quite rightly, to maintain a minimum wage. What is the difference in morals between the man who wants to maintain a minimum wage and the man who wants to maintain a minimum price? I, fortunately, do not happen to belong to any organisation connected with any trade which has a system of price maintenance, but the hon. Member belongs to an organisation which exists primarily for price maintenance, so he must not come here and denounce other people's monopolies.
I had the privilege in the years 1920 to 1922 to act as joint hon. secretary of a Committee set up by the engineering and shipbuilding trade employers and employees at the invitation of both sides. We inquired into many of these things. When

we got to the Merseyside we found that on Merseyside, if they used the oxy-acetylene flame to cut out the damaged plates on the side of a ship, instead of cutting them out by a much slower method, the rule created by the organisation to which the hon. Member belongs, and the allied organisations, was that the oxy-acetylene flame must not be used unless there were at least 20 people on the job. So 18 people used to read their newspapers and smoke, while one man and a boy did the job. What is the use of talking about restrictive practice? Let him go down to Peckham—if they have not been bombed out—to the offices of the Amalgamated Engineering Union and he will find there a copy of the document compiled by members of his union, other unions, and myself as hon. secretary, reciting many of these restrictive practices. Really, the hon. Member must come here with a clean sheet before he throws mud at others.

Mr. Hicks: Do I understand from my hon. Friend that that is the way private enterprise runs industry?

Sir H. Williams: No, I was only discussing what the hon. Member did. The hon. Gentleman said that in the United States—according to the report for which my Conservative Friend the hon. Member for Maid stone (Mr. Bossom) was primarily responsible—the output is much higher than here because they have mechanised building. Even without mechanising, the hon. Member for Battersea, South (Sir H. Selley) has laid 210 bricks within the precincts of this building in an hour in the presence of—I still call him my hon. Friend the Member for East Woolwich (Mr. Hicks).

Mr. Hicks: I ought to explain that the hon. Member for South Battersea (Sir H. Selley) had some beer, and we gave him a bath afterwards.

Sir H. Williams: I have not the slightest objection to the hon. Gentleman the Member for East Woolwich or his friends having either beer or a bath, provided they lay the bricks. Now there are industries, for example, the iron and steel industry, where for years they have carried on successfully without any disputes. It is the most friendly industry in this country, even though it was denounced last week by the right hon. Gentleman


the Member for Central Wandsworth (Mr. Ernest Bevin), and for years they have always related wages to the price of steel. Does the hon. Gentleman object to that? Does he object to joint arrangements between the Iron and Steel Trades Confederation—which I think is the employees'association—and the British Iron and Steel Federation—which I believe is the employers' organisation? For years they have run this arrangement whereby they have directly related wages, according to some formula, to steel prices.
Is that the doctrine he is going to preach when he talks about the election, because there are branches of that industry in his constituency? He denounced amalgamations in the coalmining industry. I have never had any connection with that industry but, if he will turn up the Coal Mines Act of1930, which was supposed to be the last word in wisdom but I strongly objected to it, what did it do? It fixed quotas of output—restriction by a Labour Government. According to the election manifesto of 1929 the ideal was quotas for each pit—compulsory amalgamations—as the result of which a gentleman has been drawing £7,000 a year for doing nothing. All that was created under the Labour Party—compulsory amalgamation, restriction of output—the only party that ever made it statutory was the Labour Party in 1930. The hon. Gentleman has denounced all sorts of combines. I hate monopolies much more than the hon. Gentleman does.

Mr. Tinker: On that point about what the Labour Party did in that period, was it not because we had to act with tine Liberals to get their support?

Sir H. Williams: It is no good the hon. Member for Leigh (Mr. Tinker) saying that, because the terms of the Coal Mines Act accorded with the terms of the election manifesto. Surely the hon. Gentleman is not suggesting that they did a deal with the Liberal Party before they published their election manifesto? I am not assuming that they were quite as dishonest politically as all that, but as the Act was roughly in line with the election manifesto, I presume they were—

Mr. Shinwell: Will my hon. Friend forgive me? We ought to leave romance aside; this is a serious Debate. You will get the facts before the end of this Debate. You will get a lot more—

Hon. Members: Order.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker (Mr. Charles Williams): I hope the hon. Gentleman did not refer to me when he really meant to refer to the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams).

Mr. Shinwell: I am sorry, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, it was a blunder. Hon. Members, I say, will get the facts and a great deal more before the end of this Debate. But the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) is dealing with the question of the sale of quotas.

Sir H. Williams: No, I never said a word about that.

Mr. Shinwell: Yes, the hon. Gentleman did. He has just spoken about quotas. I imagine my hon. Friend referred to the selling of quotas.

Sir H. Williams: indicated dissent.

Mr. Shinwell: That is exactly what he said. Did my hon. Friend make no reference at all to the selling of quotas under the 1930 Act?
Hon. Members: No.
Sir H. Williams: I did not say one word about that. I do not mind being interrupted; in fact I welcome interruption for it is an absolute godsend to be interrupted by most of the people who do the interrupting. What I said—[Interruption.] Hon. Members opposite have had three goes, it is time I had a go—was this, that the quota system of the 1930 Mines Act was a system of restriction of output.
Mr. Shinwell: That is the point. The hon. Gentleman did refer to the selling of quotas. [Hon. Members: "No."] All right. He referred to quotas, and what he inferred was that the quotas led to restrictive practices.

Hon. Members: No.

Sir H. Williams: The system of establishing a quota under the Act, for which the hon. Gentleman had some responsibility, meant that the mines restricted were not permitted to produce more than a certain quantity. That, I said, was restriction made by Act of Parliament.

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend must bear this in mind, that as regards the restriction of coal production as a whole, there was none whatever. There was no


actual reduction in the production of coal. I know something about it because I was responsible for the administration of the Act but not for the Act itself. The selling of certain coal quotas—because that is what he meant—the transfer of certain quotas from one mine to another, did not in fact lead to any restriction of coal production.

Sir H. Williams: All I am saying is this. The hon. Gentleman always rates intelligence high and he was once Secretary of the Mines Department—

Mr. Shinwell: Twice.

Sir H. Williams: Twice. He also represents a coal district, therefore I should have thought he would be more familiar with the Act than he appears to be. All I was saying was this. The hon. Member for Stoke said that it is an evil thing to do anything which restricts output. I agreed with him. I then pointed out that by the Act of 1930 a limit was, in fact, put on the output of every pit in this country and it was called the quota scheme—[Hon. Members: "No."] Well, the Library is not very far away. Any Member can go there and pick up the Statutes for 1930, and turn up the Coal Mines Act. If he does he will verify whether what I am saying is true or not. It is all on record. As a sequel there were set up 17 districts, with their selling schemes. I, with the late Sir Arnold Wilson, was responsible for a Motion for the rejection of all these selling schemes, but we were overborne by the Labour Party. They were in alliance with all this restriction. There was a restriction of output under the terms of the Act passed in 1930 by the Labour Government, in accordance with their Election Manifesto of 1929.
The hon. Member for Stoke seems to have read too many documents and mixed up his index and page numbers. He said there were 2,000 cartels in Germany. If you have 2,000 cartels it does not sound much like a monopoly. There must be several cartels in each trade, and that being so you have a reasonable degree of competition. I think he ought to look up his notes again before he makes his historic adoption speech on Saturday night in Stoke-on-Trent. The hon. Member made reference to the concentration of industry. I do not like the concentration of industry,

and I have spoken in the House, not in this Chamber but in another, in opposition to it. I said it was a mistake, that it was better to allow factories to carry on and maintain their personnel, and not let the industry be destroyed. That speech is on record. But all the united wisdom sitting on the benches opposite and the then President of the Board of Trade did not agree with me. I was opposing monopolies, and I do not think the hon. Member was very active about the matter on that occasion.

Mr. Ellis Smith: My hon. Friends and I agreed to anything within reason to enable us to win this war.

Sir H. Williams: Precisely, but this has nothing to do with winning the war. In those days, the hon. Member was willing to vote blind to anything the Cabinet said. I was not, and I used to be criticised for attacking the then Government, for the dreadful things I said about them, which were not so bad as what they are saying about one another now that the lid is off. What I said to them I think they deserved, but I do not think they deserve what they are now revealing to one another.

Mr. Shinwell: Surely the hon. Member cannot complain about that. He is against monopolies and in favour of competition.

Sir H. Williams: We are getting it now, but it is oratorical competition of a rather low grade. I think the Party opposite might resume a little of the dignity which they have lost during the last few days.

Mr. George Griffiths: Who started it?

Sir H. Williams: I did not; I have enough to do looking after my own sins. I am opposed to combines of all kinds. They should be watched, whether it is a combine of a State medical service, which we were talking about yesterday and which I do not like too much, or a number of capitalists trying to control entirely particular industries, or combines of people in a particular trade union. They are all bad if they are overdone. I am opposed to combines of multiple shops which, because they are making a lot of profit, undersell another fellow until he collapses and they buy him out.
I am opposed to combines whether they belong to Unilevers or the "Co-ops."


You have to look at this matter in the broadest possible way. I see that the Liberal Party are strongly represented to-day by the hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot), who has abandoned economic warfare for another kind of warfare. It is curious to note that virtually every one of the real monopolies of this country has been organised by Liberals, for instance, the late Lord Leverhulme, the I.C.I. founders—many of whom I knew personally, and who form a remarkable body—and the cocoa combine. They are all Liberals. Therefore, I hope we shall have to-day a valuable contribution from the hon. Member for Dundee as to why his party, which stands for freedom, always joins the combines.

4.36 p.m.

Mr. Dingle Foot: So far we have had a very enjoyable Debate, the kind of Debate which reminds us, even if we could forget it, that the General Election is only a few days off. I shall do my best, before I conclude, to try to satisfy the curiosity of the hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams), but first of all I would like to say that I think we are indebted to hon. Members above the Gangway for having raised this subject to-day. It is regrettable, and it is a rather curious fact, that this is the first discussion we have had on this topic, so far as I can recall, during the whole lifetime of this Parliament. It is also regrettable that we have not been given the opportunity which would have been provided if the party opposite had not been quite so hasty about the Election, to have the Restrictive Practices Bill brought before us.
The fact that this subject has not been discussed earlier is certainly not the fault of the party which sits on these benches. I would like to quote the terms of a Motion which, both this Session and last Session, appeared on the Order Paper in the name of my right hon. Friend the Member for South West Bethnal Green (Sir P. Harris) and a number of other Liberal Members:
That this House takes note of the recent declaration of His Majesty's Government regarding combines and price-fixing agreements and urges His Majesty's Government to introduce legislation in the near future designed to protect the consumer against exploitation; to remove those defects in the law (such as those relating to the law of patents) which have encouraged the growth of monopolies; to convert

into public utility companies such complete monopolies as are found to be necessary or desirable because of the character or commodity of the service provided; and to prevent trade associations from limiting the right of entry into their trades or industries.
It may be remembered that the party to which I belong also tabled an Amendment to the Address this Session, in similar terms. I think everyone is vaguely aware of the prevailing tendency towards monopoly and combination. But I really do not think that the general public have even begun to realise the extent to which that tendency has developed in recent years, and the extent to which British industry is now dominated by comparatively few concerns. The hon. Member for South Croydon complained that there was a lack of evidence in the speech of the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith). I think the hon. Member himself probably read with care the speech made some months ago to the Royal Statistical Society by Mr. Leak, who is Chief Statistician to the Board of Trade. I do not intend to weary the House with a great number of quotations from that address, but I think it will be within the recollection of Members that that speech contained a great deal of solid evidence of the extent to which concentration and monopolistic practices have grown up in British industry.

Sir H. Williams: On a point of Order. Is it competent for us to discuss speeches made somewhere else by civil servants?

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I hardly see that a quotation of this sort offends against any Rule of the House.

Mr. Foot: It would indeed be extraordinary if I could not quote from any speech except that made by a Minister.

Sir H. Williams: But civil servants are represented here by Ministers. We are debarred from either praising or criticising them. This is an important issue not because of the particular point being raised by the hon. Member but because we cannot discuss civil servants, only those who represent them.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: I understand that this quotation is from something which has already been published, and I cannot see why it should not be quoted.

Mr. Foot: If I may now pursue my argument I would like to give just three facts from that address, which have a considerable bearing on the subject which is before us to-day. First, Mr. Leak pointed out that in 1935—the year with which he was dealing—there were 1,959 large businesses which produced no less than 58 per cent. of the net output of British industry, and employed 55 per cent. of all industrial workers, that is to say, rather less than 2,000 firms out of a total of about 53,000. He also said that among them were 939very large firms, each employing over 1,000 people, which supplied 49 per cent, of the industrial output and employed 45 per cent. of the total of industrial workers. Of the 1,959 firms there were 1,400 which were single firms—that is, in no sensemonopolistic—and they produced slightly less in that year than the 532 combines. Although the combines employed considerably fewer workers they produced, in fact, the majority of the output. Lastly, Mr. Leak gave a list of no fewer than 118 commodities, all of them articles in common use, which, in 1935, were either wholly or in effect the monopoly of one or, at the most, two firms.
These things are due to a number of causes. A combination may, of course, be due to a desire for monopoly, and it may in certain cases be due to the inherent advantages of large-scale production. But when we look at the kind of evidence I have been quoting, and what has happened in succeeding years, I do not think any Member, not even the hon. Member for South Croydon, would seriously suggest that the tendencies we have seen have been due to technical factors alone. The remarkable thing is that we are almost the only great country which has made scarcely any attempt to stop the growth of monopolies. This growth has taken place almost if not quite with the approval of successive Governments between the wars.

Sir H. Williams: Including 1930.

Mr. Foot: Yes. The hon. Member referred to the Coal Mines Act, the only part of his speech with which I agreed. He himself will recollect the history of the iron and steel industry since tariffs were introduced in 1930. I do not think you could have a more perfect example of the growth of monopolistic practices than that—

Sir H. Williams: I entirely disapproved. Tariffs were withheld from the industry until the industry agreed to a certain measure of amalgamation.

Mr. Foot: Yes, and after that the tariff was considerably increased in order to meet their wishes.

Sir H. Williams: No.

Mr. Foot: The industry was put in the position whereby it would determine not the size of the tariff, but the amount of steel which they should be permitted to import from abroad. During the years when that system prevailed, I think the hon. Member will agree with me that there was a very considerable rise in the price of steel.

Sir H. Williams: And in the output.

Mr. Foot: There has been not merely a failure to discourage this sort of thing, but in the legislation between 1930 and 1939 we have come very near to a system of statutory monopolies, in which monopolies are bolstered up by the provisions of Acts of Parliament. A perfect example of that is to be found in the Agricultural Marketing Act, 1933, in which there is a provision that the Ministry of Agriculture may approve a scheme under which new entrants may be debarred from coming into some branch of the agricultural industry. I remember that on one or two occasions before the war the House expressed itself strongly in opposition to the sugar marketing scheme and strongly criticised the hops scheme, because both of them embodied the principle of statutory monopoly.
In this connection I think it is relevant to refer to a phrase that is bandied about from time to time—self-government in industry. That is one of the phrases which is used to cover the principle of statutory monopoly. I read with considerable interest the Report on the Organisation of British Industry issued some time ago by the Federation of British Industries. Hon. Member will recall some of the features of that scheme. I want to remind them only of two. It was not proposed that membership of a trade association should be legally compulsory, but it was proposed to apply indirect compulsion by making the trade association in each case the only permissible and official channel of communication between Government Depart-


ments and various branches of the industry. Anyone who has any knowledge of the working of industry or of the working of Government Departments knows precisely what that would mean. Secondly, it was seriously proposed that the trade associations should be placed in a position to negotiate on behalf of their industries and be regarded as speaking for national units by industries similarly organised in other countries. In effect, this means that the authors of that report were in no way against controls. They did not join at all in the cry that controls should be swept away as soon as possible. They were entirely in favour of controls, but so long as, and only so long as, the controls were exercised, not by the Government, not by any public authority, but by the larger units in the industry itself. That is the form of corporate State which is being seriously suggested in many quarters, and we are invited by that kind of scheme—it is by no means the only example I could quote—to give general approval to the whole principle of monopoly and combination. It would be very interesting if whoever replies for the Government would care to give us the Government's views on proposals of that character.
I shall only say a word or two more on the topic that was raised by the hon. Member for Stoke, namely, international cartels. I do not propose to pursue the allegations that have been made in the United States. No doubt they will be tried out and the results will be of the greatest interest. But whether or not the activities of international cartels are always as sinister as is sometimes suggested, there can, I think, be no doubt that cartels can and do sometimes take action without regard either to the national interest or to the prevailing policy of the Government of the day. I will give a single example. It is the case of the sale abroad of British fertilisers before the war. From 1930 to 1932 the Danish Government were making strenuous efforts to increase Danish purchases of British goods. They realised that Britain was at that time their best customer, and they wished to improve trade relations between the two countries. Denmark was, of course, a very considerable purchaser of fertilisers; in fact, they bought them to the extent of £3,000,000 a year. The Danish Government would have been quite prepared that the whole of that order

should have been placed in the United Kingdom, but during that period an international cartel arrangement was reached by which the Danes were permitted to buy their fertilisers only in Germany. I remember going to Denmark in 1932 and discussing some of these questions with members of the Danish Government and an eminent Dane saying to me, with considerable bitterness, that they had been sold to the Germans. There you have a clear case of something which may have been justified from the narrow point of view of the concern itself, but which ran counter not only to the national interest but to the policy that was being pursued by His Majesty's Government at the time. When there is a division of that kind the position is absolutely intolerable.
We are to-day all under the disability, to which reference has been made, that we cannot go in any detail into the remedies we would like to suggest, but as was indicated in the resolution which I read at the beginning of my speech, the party to which I belong has already brought forward a whole series of proposals to deal with and curb the tendency towards monopolistic practices. It is something of which we shall hear more both during the Election and afterwards.

4.54 p.m.

Mr. Colegate: I am one of those who would like to see an inquiry into the operation of cartels and monopolies, but it must not be assumed by people who press for such an inquiry that the results will show that all cartel arrangements and all amalgamations are sinister. The hon. Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot) referred to the sale of British fertilisers abroad. What is the good of his talking to us about the prevention of the sale of fertilisers to Denmark unless he tells us what the agreement was and whether in other markets the United Kingdom obtained advantages which might have compensated for exclusion from the Danish market? It is no good bringing up cases of that sort.
One of the things that has been impressed upon industrialists in this country by every party has been that they should get together and do what their American and German rivals were doing. That has been a commonplace of Labour and Socialist literature for years. Let me give some examples. For many years between the two wars practically every producer of


wheat in the world, including those in the United States and Canada, was producing at a loss. Agriculture was in a terrible condition in every country in the world, and wheat was being thrown into the sea. If it had been possible to cartelise that industry and maintain wheat at a reasonable price level, it would have been far better for agricultural producers in this country and in every other country. There may be cartel arrangements which are evil; if so, let us bring them into the light of day; but do not believe every silly little allegation in the sensational American Press, allegations which are made for reasons of which the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) has no idea. There are industrial and political rivalries there which lead to accusations of that sort. The law of libel is practically not operative in the United States, and statements and allegations are made which would lead to heavy punishment in this country. The hon. Member for Stoke must not be taken in by things of that kind. I want to refer to the coal industry. If there is one party that has pressed for amalgamation in the coal industry it is the party of hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite. Although the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell) has completely forgotten the 1930 Act—

Mr. Shinwell: Nothing of the sort. I have the Act before me and will quote from it if I am called later.

Mr. Colegate: The hon. Member denied that it placed a maximum on the output of coal in this country.

Mr. Shinwell: What I said was that the fact that provision was made for the transfer of quotas and allocations to certain pits did not in fact lead to restriction on coal production, taking the country as a whole.

Mr. Colegate: That is another point. It is clear that the 1930 Act places a definite maximum upon the total output of coal.

Mr. Shinwell: Not at all.

Mr. Colegate: The words of the Act are clear beyond the possibility of misinterpretation. It places a definite restriction on the maximum output of coal, and that maximum output is then to be allocated pit by pit. There is no ambiguity in the Act.

Mr. A. Bevan: What was the figure?

Mr. Colegate: No figure is given. The Act says that there shall be an allocation of a maximum output for the district and also of the total for the United Kingdom; the output is to be fixed by consultation, and there is machinery for changing the restricted output from period to period.

Mr. Bevan: I took a considerable part in the Debates in those years, and my recollection is that the obligation imposed upon the national coal authority was to make an assessment of the amount of coal likely to be sold, and to make an allocation to the various districts and inside the districts to allot a quota to the collieries concerned.

Mr. Colegate: I have worked under the Act. The pit in which I was interested, although I am no longer, was not permitted to produce more than a certain tonnage, and this did a great deal of economic harm; it could have produced a great deal more coal but it was prevented from doing so by the Act. Anybody who says it is not so is incapable of reading the Act. It was a restrictive Act. The party opposite pressed for years for restriction, and we were told that we were very foolish to have unrestricted production. They said to us, "Have restrictive production, it will help you to get the price up, and you can then pay the wages we want." If that is legitimate for the coal industry, it may very well be—and this is why we want an inquiry—that it is desirable in other industries. Let me now revert briefly to the question of the export markets in connection with the coal industry. In the coal industry one of the great facts which make it difficult to pay the wages that might have been paid, is the failure to have any international agreement. In the export market there are practically only three competitors—Poland, Germany and the United Kingdom. In normal times coal is imported into European countries from no others than those three. In the war years there was no agreement between the three countries, and the Polish Government subsidised to an incredible extent the sale of Polish coal. It was sold at one time for the mere cost of the transport and the shipping. Looking at it from the economic point of view, it was given away


for nothing and the consumer only paid the cost of shipping and transport inside and outside Poland.

Mr. Shinwell: I must join issue with the hon. Member. I was Secretary for Mines in the 1929–31 Government, and I had occasion to take a deputation of coalowners to Scandinavian countries to inquire into that subject. We discovered that it was not that Polish coal was being sold at a much lower price than British, but that the Polish coalowners saw to it that Polish coal for export was carefully cleaned and graded, whereas British coal was not subjected to those processes. The hon. Member can get a report of the delegation to Scandinavian countries and the conclusions that were reached, not by myself but by the coalowners who were there.

Mr. Colegate: I cannot agree with the hon. Gentleman. The facts are quite otherwise. In fact the subsidy on Polish coal was never less than 15s. a ton, which was about the pithead price. That is well known to many of his colleagues. In that case it would have been a very great advantage to this country, and to everyone concerned, had there been a cartel for the regulation and sale of coal at a proper price. In fact just before the war, when it was known that the Government were prepared to give their approval to such an arrangement, the whole coal situation was changed, to the material benefit of everyone concerned. Therefore if we have an inquiry, which I should strongly support, let it not be an inquiry into someone's allegations but something much more fundamental. Let us find out what cartels do, where they are beneficial and where they are legal and, if the inquiry is conducted in that way, I am sure we shall get results which will be of very great benefit not merely to British industry but to the whole of the European economy, which will be upset after this war to an extent that we have never seen before.

5.4 p.m.

Mr. A. Bevan: I must intervene to reply to what the hon. Member has just said. I am astonished that the complaint came from him. I remember that, for many years, the Miners Federation of Great Britain attempted to persuade the coalowners to

bring about such unification of the coal industry as would make international agreement possible, and the people who resisted that were the coalowners themselves. I remember taking part in writing pamphlet after pamphlet, trying to persuade the owners to nationalise their industry, so as to enable some national authority to speak authoritatively on behalf of the industry as a whole. In 1927, a small delegation, of which I was a member, visited the European coal areas. We went to France, Belgium, Germany, Poland, and more particularly Silesia. Our report fully confirmed what the hon. Member has said, that it would have been in the best interest of the coal industry of Great Britain if an international agreement could have been arranged, not for the purpose primarily of maintaining coal prices but for the purpose of bringing about an intelligent allocation of markets, because even in those years Europe was not producing more coal than it needed. What was really happening was that competition was taking place unnecessarily in certain markets. The fiercest competition was taking place in the Baltic market.
The hon. Member is also correct in saying that the Polish Government subsidised Silesian coal to such an extent that it was under-selling our coal in the Baltic markets. But he has only told half the story. It was impossible for us to reach any agreement, because we had no one in Great Britain with whom to reach an agreement. [Interruption.] The hon. Member must submit to this because it has been documented to such an extent as to be beyond all question. There was not, there is not even to-day, any authority in the coal industry able to enter into an agreement with any international producer of coal.

Mr. Colegate: The hon. Member must know that the Export Committee in 1938 had already negotiated such an agreement.

Mr. Bevan: I know exactly what happened. As a matter of fact, a delegation of coalowners went to Poland and one of its leaders was an authority on the export market, a director of the Ebbw Vale Steel and Iron Company. I discussed it with him at the time. He came back and lamented the fact that no agreement was reached. The reason was that the British coalowners were at no time


able to confer authority on any plenipotentiaries acting on their behalf, because they could not make the agreement good throughout the industry. Then, as now, the coal companies insisted on their own autonomy. That is why we could not get amalgamation, because no overriding authority could impose its will on these anarchic coalowners.
I can confirm what I am saying by an illustration. I visited a new pit which was being sunk in Poland, in a very fertile coal measure. The seams there are anything from 15 to 30 feet thick. The Polish miners were paid 18s. a week. I inquired who financed the sinking of some of these new Polish mines, and I discovered that one of the chief financiers was the Prudential Assurance Company. We have just had a report from British mining engineers which shows that £200,000,000 to £300,000,000 of new capital is needed for the re-equipment of British industry. In 1930 this House presented the coalowners, under economic duress, with artificial control over coal prices. No one on this side has ever contended that that was a perfect measure. Its main purpose was to try to protect the coal industry from its own internecine warfare, which had brought coal prices to so low a level that the industry was unable to attract new capital for its re-equipment. I have not used this evidence before, but I am compelled to do it by the speech that has just been made. So that from 1930 onwards the coalowners have had effective control over prices. So far from the miners having benefited from this power which was conferred on the owners, by 1939 they had been so badly treated that 83 classes of wage earners were more highly paid than they were. So badly paid were the miners that the owners began to protest that they were leaving the pits in larger numbers. So you had a Gilbertian situation where the profits were guaranteed, so that they no longer had the need to spend any new money on re-equipment. This is one of the defects of cartels and trusts. The owners were presented with what any ordinary capitalist would regard as an ideal situation.

Mr. Colegate: Nothing of the kind. It is totally untrue.

Mr. Bevan: There is no disputing the fact. The hon. Member himself said that

in 1930 the House conferred on the coalowners the right to fix minimum output. That is an ideal situation for capitalists. In addition to that, it gave the owners the power of artificially fixing prices, which normally followed from the power to fix outputs, because you have the buyer by the throat. At the same time the colliery workers presented the coalowners with cheap labour. Here you have an ideal situation in which to attract new capital into the industry if you wished to reduce the cost of production and provide coal at a reasonable price.

Sir H. Holdsworth: Is it not a fact that during that period there was an agreed basis of distribution of the proceeds of the output as between the owners and the miners?

Mr. Bevan: The hon. Gentleman must follow really the argument logically. Even supposing it was the case that this was an incidental feature of the agreement, it still, in 1939, left the miners 84 classes down among British wage-earners, so that no one can suggest that the miners exploited the consumer of coal in association with the coalowners.
Then what happened? Did the coalowners take advantage of those circumstances to attract new capital? Some did, I agree, but, as a whole, did the coalowners say, "Now we have been provided by Parliament with an ideal framework within which we can work with some idea of predictability. We know what the situation will be from year to year and, in fact, in 10 and 15 years' time. Therefore, we can make our plans, plough back our dividends into the industry, and re-equip it"? On the contrary, they pocketed the money, distributed the dividends, and allowed the industry to fall into such a condition of dereliction that coalowners now say that it requires £200,000,000 to re-equip it.

Mr. Colegate: I really must interrupt the hon. Gentleman. The whole of his argument is based on a complete misstatement of fact. He said that the price was guaranteed to coalowners. It was not. What was agreed to was a price which, owing to the rising costs, made a large part of the industry unprofitable.

Mr. Bevan: I have not talked about a guaranteed price of coal.

Mr. Colegate: The hon. Member used the words "guaranteed price."

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Gentleman must not keep up perpetual interruptions. There has been a lot of interruption on all sides, and perhaps all sides should try to stop it.

Mr. Bevan: What I said was that the coalowners have been provided by Statute, according to the hon. Member's own speech just now, with a power to fix maximum output. That power is always accompanied, as every economist knows, by effective control over prices. Therefore, that is tantamount to a guaranteed price for their markets because they have the buyer at their mercy.
We have now in 1945 a report from a man like Mr. Hann of the Powell Duffryn Company, who, to his credit as a mining engineer, condemns himself as a coalowner, because, as a mining engineer, he says the industry is inefficient in almost every respect and requires new capital to equip it. As a coalowner, he has been responsible for frustrating his genius as a mining engineer. That is the classic situation which every Socialist has always claimed. Under a system of cartelisation or trustification of this sort, it is no longer necessary for even the entrepreneur to use his skill because he can get his profits without using it. He can get them by manipulating price and rigging the market, and he need not confer upon the consumer the benefits of his technical genius. Instead of providing a political framework in which the coalowners could make an efficient coal industry, all that Parliament did was to preserve the profits of the owners at the expense of a technically obsolescent coalmining industry.
I want to revert to my Polish analogy. What happens when you lend money to a comparatively undeveloped country like Poland? The Prudential Assurance Company was not finding money for the coal industry in Great Britain which so badly needed it. That is why we on this side of the House have always insisted upon the establishment of an investment board. If we had had an investment board which would have directed the savings of the British people into the channels of British industry, our savings would not have been used to go abroad at a time when our own industries suffered from the absence of new capital. Indeed, the City of London has always known more about the investment possibilities of Borneo than those of Bradford or the Rhondda

So the Prudential Assurance Company lent money to the Polish coalowner. What then happened? Mines were sunk, and the Polish miner is paid 18s. a week. Why is he paid so little? Because the coalowners go to Geneva and frustrate the I.L.O. when it is trying to establish a uniform wage for miners throughout Europe. The Prudential Assurance Company and great aggregations of capital of that sort see to it that the Government goes to Geneva to prevent our raising the standard of Polish miners because that might jeopardise the interest on the money they invested in Poland. In other words, they are interested in keeping down the wages of Polish miners.
What does the Polish Government do now? The Prudential Assurance Company will not take its interest in Polish currency; it has to take it in sterling. It lends money to a Polish colliery undertaking, but it wants its returns in our own currency. How are the Poles to get English currency into their possession unless they sell their products in the world market? Silesia is a long way from Danzig. So the Polish Government actually subsidised the transit of coal from Silesia to Danzig, the result of which was to reduce our markets in the Baltic areas by 50 per cent. In other words, British coalminers were put out of work in order to amortise the Prudential investment in Silesia. That is a story of cartelisation on the one side and undirected investment on the other. Even the Federation of British Industries, in 1937, were so upset by this anarchic misdirection of our capital resources that they asked for international control of investments. Here is a concrete illustration of what happens when you allow the unification of an industry to take place under private ownership.
Let us try to make our position on this side clear. We are not against the unification of the basic industries. On the contrary, we are in favour of it. We do not want to maintain internecine competition in these industries, because we know very well what that means. We are in favour of a policy of international agreements, but we desire to see unification brought under public control because we know very well that, if these cartel agreements which are being made between this country and other countries are under private control, they will not be used for the public benefit. A perfect illustration


of that was the South Wales tinplate trade. In my hon. Friend's constituency and round West Wales firms were kept in existence which had never produced any tin. They were paid their profits out of the cartel, out of the pool. The result was that we reached a situation in which the price of American tin boxes was being brought down below the figure arranged by the tin cartel, and soon we were in danger of having the whole industry of West Wales destroyed if the Americans broke the cartel as, indeed, they would as soon as they were able to produce enough tin on the market at the price at which they were able to produce it. That is the reason why Sir William Firth and other enlightened industrialists established strip mills in this country. They had their backs broken by the British steel cartel.
The same thing is true about the steel industry as a whole. I said in the House the other day that the steel industry of this country has been petrified at an output of 12,000,000 tons of steel per annum. We were producing 14,500,000 tons of steel before the war. If this country were consuming steel at the same rate per head as America, we should be consuming 20,000,000 tons per annum. Every industrialist knows that the best single index of the industrial efficiency of a modern nation is its consumption of steel. Judged by that standard, we have, owing to the cartel, been reduced to the status of an inefficient country. That is why my right hon. Friend the Member for Central Wandsworth (Mr. E. Bevin) said the other day that we were being cramped in this steel combine and that English industry was being pressed into a condition of semi-death. That is why we want to break the cartel. Fortunes are being made in this country by people because they do not produce goods, and by refusing, on conditions, to produce goods. It is obvious to everybody and, as my hon. Friends opposite know, to every economist who studies this question, that there is no possibility of extending the standard of livelihood for the people of Great Britain until we break the cartels and trusts in which British industry is being destroyed.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. Spearman: Most hon. Members on all sides of the House have a great admiration for

the great oratorical gifts of my hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. A. Bevan) but when he makes one of his excursions into economics I cannot resist trying to catch the Speaker's eye. My hon. Friend introduced a certain confusion of thought which in his case I have noticed before when he referred to an investment board. I would like to point out to him that the decision as to whether money shall be invested on capital equipment is not by those who have saved, but by the owners of the business deciding whether it is profitable. In the case of the strip mills which he mentioned, he gave credit to Sir William Firth; this was an unfortunate case for my hon. Friend to take, because Sir William Firth, unfortunately under pressure from the authorities, decided, not because the investors wanted it, but because he thought it was worth while, to spend an enormous sum of money amounting to £2,000,000 in removing a mountain in order to place a steel works in an unsuitable place.

Mr. Bevan: Has my hon. Friend ever been to Ebbw Vale?

Mr. Spearman: No.

Mr. Bevan: Then how does the hon. Member know that Sir William Firth moved a mountain? My hon. Friend has been listening to the gossip of the Exchange.

Mr. Spearman: I have never been to Ebbw Vale. It is one of the places, of which I have not the first-hand knowledge which belongs to my hon. Friend, but does he assume that we can never talk about things unless we have seen them?

Mr. Bevan: Having seen them, I say that my hon. Friend is wrong, and he ought, therefore, to withdraw what he has said.

Mr. Spearman: If I find I am wrong, I will certainly withdraw, but I checked this up with the greatest care, and there may be other hon. Members who know about it and can confirm it. Will not my hon. Friend agree that Ebbw Vale was an unsuitable place in view of its remoteness from the mineral required?

Mr. Bevan: My hon. Friend has not yet shown the confusion of thought into which he said I had fallen, but he is showing lamentable ignorance of the elements of


the problem. The Prime Minister has said that we had the exceeding good fortune during the wax that those steel works were situated in a place where German bombers could not discover them. In any event, they have coal and limestone, and, therefore, coke, and they have all the elements for making steel except iron ore and—

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: The hon. Member has already protested against being interrupted. I have no objection to interruptions within reason, but they must not go on in the form of another speech.

Mr. Bevan: I was about to finish my sentence. The hon. Gentleman asked me a question and had given way. I said that all the elements for making steel were present in Ebbw Vale, and if the hon. Gentleman says "except iron ore" I would say that we get most of our iron ore from Bilbao.

Mr. Spearman: My only point in bringing up the illustration at all was to show, if I could, that the hon. Gentleman was in a confusion of thought when he considered that it was the investor who settled what was spent on capital equipment.
I would like to refer to the speech made by the Junior Member for Dundee (Mr. Foot). I am sorry that neither he nor any other Member of his party is in his place, but perhaps what I am going to say does not need any apology because I am going to express agreement with a great deal of what he said. He made an attack on monopolies and cartels. I would like to assure him that on these benches he will find a great deal of support for the protection of the consumer by free competition, and in places where monopoly is inevitable that there should be a degree of Government supervision to check abuse. But while I can assure him there would be support on these benches, I would like to suggest to him that that support is not so unanimous in his own party as he would have us believe. He made many references to what other hon. Members in his party had done, and I would like to draw his attention to a statement of the hon. Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Sir William Beveridge) in his book on full employment published only a few months ago. He said this:

The whole trend of the argument on this Part of the Report is towards a management of international trade, in place of leaving it to unregulated competition. That is to say, it is towards that for which the cartels stand. To attempt to destroy or stop cartellisation would, therefore, be a contradiction of policy.
I would like to stress to the Junior Member for Dundee that that does not show any unanimity in his party for free competition, or for protection of the consumer, as was shown by the Prime Minister in his speech on 4th June.

5.33 p.m.

Mr. Shinwell: My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) in his interesting and well-documented speech made a proposition to the House. It was that this Government, or another Government which may follow it, should institute an inquiry into the operations and general activities of trusts and internal and international cartels. That proposition received a large measure of acceptance on this side of the House. At any rate, no hon. Member so far has rejected the proposition, and I would not be surprised if the representative of the Government, the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade, did not demur. But let us be clear as to what is meant by an inquiry into the operations of trusts and cartels. We cannot afford to wait a long time. We know what inquiries mean. We know, moreover, what frequently happens to the recommendations of a committee of inquiry. We cannot wait a long time before deciding our attitude on this matter. If trusts and cartels are responsible for pernicious activities, and if that is demonstrated, they should be dealt with summarily and with speed. If, on the other hand, we discover that this country can afford the existence of such organisations, efficient or otherwise, small or large, without detriment to the general trade of the country, then the sooner we are made aware of that fact the better it will be. So my proposition, which is an addendum to the proposition of my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke, is that if the Government should institute an inquiry let it be expedited, let it be thorough and let us have the conclusions as rapidly as possible so that appropriate action may be taken.
When this Debate was asked for we had in mind a discussion not merely on trusts and cartels, but one that dealt with


the general trade position of the country and our future trade prospects. Of course, that is all linked up in a very intimate way with the nature of the industrial organisation. For example, if the industrial organisation in this country is disintegrated and, for that matter, inefficient and inadequate for our purpose, obviously it affects our future trade prospects. On the other hand, if it is integrated, highly efficient, competent and adapted to the public need, and can respond to the ever-changing conditions affecting world trade, then obviously it will have a beneficial effect on our trade and commerce. The two subjects are closely related. I am very much more concerned about the beneficial objective—I am repeating myself in making this statement because I have said it frequently—than I am about the machinery for reaching that objective. I go so far as to say that, if it can be demonstrated that the existing structure of British industry is capable of reaching the desirable trade objective we have in mind, so as to minister beneficially to the public need, I am content. In other words—I have no doubt my hon. Friends will agree with me—we on these benches are not troubling ourselves unduly about new machinery, if the old machinery can create for us the conditions we desire. In this discussion so far, an attempt has been made to search for the alleged culprits responsible for the creation of monopolies, trusts and cartels; responsible as is alleged—I put it no higher than that—for inefficiency and for restrictive practices that are detrimental to the public good.
My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke, in his very interesting speech, in a most comprehensive fashion searched the world for these culprits. Undoubtedly he was right when he directed attention to their existence in the United States of America, in the former Germany and elsewhere. But I am not going to roam the world in my search for the culprits, when in fact we have them on our own doorstep. Indeed, we need go no further than the precincts of this House, in order to discover them. They exist even within the precincts of this House in a very narrow compass, for they are representing His Majesty's Government. The principal monopolists of this country, directly or indirectly, are in His Majesty's Government.
The remarkable thing about it all is that there is one member of His Majesty's Government who, in his constant and frantic search for the monopolists, has never yet discovered that they are his intimate colleagues. I refer to Lord Beaverbrook, who is constantly cavilling at the monopolists. Incidentally, there is an allegation, for what it may be worth, that Lord Beaverbrook is himself an arch monopolist. A book was published in 1934—I hope I may be forgiven for quoting from notes, but I want to quote accurately and not rely entirely on my memory—by someone named Edgar Middleton. The title of the book was "The Statesman and the Man." Before I quote what appeared in that book, I would like to quote what the "Daily Express" said only last week on this subejct of monopolies, because it ought to be on the record. There never was a more appropriate time to have it on the record than now when we are on the eve of a General Eleciton, and when one of the principal topics of public interest will be this question of monopoly and how to deal with it. I quote:
The little men are the backbone of industry and commerce. If a trust with great resources in many hives of activity so conducts its business as to prejudice the chances of the little man or to crush him, injury is done to the State. Any general monopoly must be deprecated because it prevents free competition.
That is a quotation from the "Daily Express." Now here is a quotation from the book entitled "The Statesman and the Man."
Strictly speaking he (Lord Beaverbrook) is not a financier. Industry is his line; his speciality the amalgamation and reorganisation of companies in the same industry. Already (before 1906) he has a score of such achievements to his credit. To name but a few, he has been responsible for and is now, (before 1906) a director of the West Canadian Power Company, the Canadian Car and Foundry Company, a £4,000,000 concern, and the immensely wealthy Steel Company of Canada, a merger of five great firms. And the number of these amalgamations is still growing. It reaches its climax with his reorganisation of the Canadian Cement Industry. This is his masterstroke. In carrying it through all his theories are to be exercised to the full, his philosophy strained to breaking-point. The cement deal is to result in the grimmest, most desperately fought battle of his career…the Canada Cement Corporation is floated with a capital of £7,500,000—Aitken makes a fortune.
I am bound to say that when Lord Beaverbrook fulminates against the mono-


polists—excuse the hackneyed language—it is a clear and demonstrable case of sin reproving sin. But, as I have remarked, he is not the only one.
What about the right hon. Gentleman the President of the Board of Trade and Minister of Production? I wonder if he would care to disclose, not his existing interests, because, as we know—and it is quite proper—when a Member accepts office under the Crown he disposes—that is the word used—of his interests. In other words, he sets them aside, presumably with a view to resuming them at a later date. I make no complaint on that score. A man has to get his living, but my right hon. Friend might care, since we are discussing this subject of monopolies, as I have remarked, at an appropriate time, on the eve of a General Election when the subject is topical and people are excited about it, to disclose all his former associated interests—British Metal Corporation, Imperial Zincs, melting companies, and other activities savouring of the trust in its highest and most powerful form. Where is the little man now? And, may I ask, what did the great corporations do with whom my right hon. Friend was associated? I am making no complaint about it on personal grounds. I am sure he is as much entitled to associate himself with such concerns as anybody else. We are living under the capitalist system, and we expect the search for high profits. Would my right hon. Friend care to say what beneficial effect these great corporations, with which he was associated before he assumed office, have on the small people in industry and in commerce? Of course, if he can demonstrate that the monopolies are valuable to the small man, then I suggest to him that while he is demonstrating that fact to us, he might, at the same time, provide a demonstration for his colleague, Lord Beaverbrook. He can have it either way.
But my right hon. Friend is not the only one. Hon. Members will understand that I am merely putting these points as a matter of good will. We can, if necessary, fight them out on the hustings, but, in view of this controversy that is raging, of the washing of dirty linen, and people knocking each other about, I thought, perhaps, that I might be allowed to join in this mix-up, this "free for all,"

and offer a few observations. But there are others, as I say. And where are the others? There is my right hon. Friend the Minister of Supply. I must say I dislike the subject in this case, because I like the Minister of Supply very much indeed, personally. He is a very likeable person and an old friend of mine, but he was the head and front of the British Iron and Steel Federation. What greater monopoly than that? But more than that, it is the monopolistic undertaking, the closely integrated form of industrial organisation, with its very clever, restrictive practices, that collected plenty of scrap iron before the war which was exported to Germany, and if some of our boys are lying in their graves in foreign lands, and if people suffered and were bereaved in this country because of German air attacks, it may well be that some of the scrap material exported from this country, and used by Germany, is to some extent responsible.
That is not all. What about Lord Leathers, the great Minister of War Transport? One of these days we shall tell the whole story about that. Some of us have been waiting for a long time, but there is no time just now. [Hon, Members: "Tell us now."] Well, I will tell hon. Members some of the story if they like. I am not going to be out of Order because the only part I am going to tell is that bearing on the subject under Debate—the Noble Lord's association with monopolies, not his general shipping interests. The great Lord Leathers, the great Minister of War Transport, the big noise in William Cory and Sons, shippers and coal exporters, one of the greatest monopolist undertakings in this country. No small men about that. But there is another, the most interesting of all, because it is so closely linked up with Lord Beaverbrook's criticism in the sphere of retail trade. What about Lord Woolton, with multiple shop concerns all over the place, driving the small retailer out of business without a penny piece of compensation? Are these the people, I ask, who are likely to make this vicious and determined assault upon the monopolies, when they are so closely associated with these concerns themselves? Is it conceivable that the Wooltons, the Leathers, the Duncans, and the Lytteltons are likely in the post-war years—I was not out of Order because I was not referring to hon.


Members but to their trade associations—to make such a determined assault on monopolies? I am sorry, Mr. Deputy- Speaker, that I should have referred to the persons concerned in the ordinary fashion as Members of this House—

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Lyttelton): It is entirely rhetorical.

Mr. Shinwell: My right hon. Friend interpellates that he regards it as entirely rhetorical. Very well, let him answer the question about his own associations. Let us have a list of them and, at the same time, let us understand how it is possible for people linked up with these octopus trade organisations—big business—to come to the assistance of the retail trader, the small man. It is a sham, fantastic; it is hypocritical, and I say, quite frankly, it is humbug on the part of Beaverbrook and company to indulge in language of that kind. But that is not all. There are others—the lesser fry. They are all linked up in one way or another. For example, to take one of the firms, one of the large octopus firms, there is Armstrong-Whitworths. What is their association with this? The derivation that you have to begin with is the Investors General Fixed Trust. You have that, and there is a gentleman named Major-General Dawnay with a whole list of honours after his name, a director of Dawnay, Day and Company, merchant bankers. Hon. Members will see the link-up. Get the public's money, use it, build up your business, drive out the small man, fix prices, take advantage of the community, and then write letters to "The Times" deprecating the practice.

Mr. C. S. Taylor: Is this a lecture by the Labour Party?

Mr. Shinwell: I am addressing the Chair. Major Dawnay is also chairman of the Armstrong Whitworth Security Company. Notice the use of the term "security." Whenever they are after private gain they always use the term "security." It has a soothing effect on the public. He is also a director of Craven Brothers, Armstrong Engineers, and the Armstrong Power and Paper Company of Newfoundland. Look at the link-up. Well, that is nothing—they have got an association with the English Steel Corporation, and with the Armstrong Whitworth shipbuilding yard, which, by the way,

was disposed of to National Shipbuilders Security Limited. That is where your restrictive practices come in. Get the business into your hands and close it down, and what do you care for the poor devils thrown out of work, except to offer them White Papers? That is not all. They go on and on, but the most interesting part of all is connected with colliery companies. Pearson and Knowles Coal and Iron Company, the Wigan Coal Corporation, the Lancashire Steel Corporation—and we had better have the rest. Who owns the Wigan Coal Corporation? It is controlled by the Lancashire Steel Corporation, a director of which is the Earl of Crawford. The company is a subsidiary of the Bank of England and Rylands Brothers. He is also chairman of the Wigan Coal and Iron Company. His son and heir, Lord Balniel, is also a director of these. He is father-in-law of Mr. Manningham-Buller who has just been requisitioned by the Government.

Mr. Deputy-Speaker: If the hon. Member refers to another hon. Member, he must do so in the proper way.

Mr. Spearman: The hon. Member is not altogether correct, because that Earl of Crawford has been dead for some years.

Mr. Shinwell: That may be, but the business still goes on in this integrated form, though I have not doubt the hon. Member to whom I have just referred, the hon. Member for Daventry, who has just beep requisitioned by the Government, and who does not conceal his hostility to Soviet Russia—

General Sir George Jeffreys: On a point of Order. May I remind the hon. Member who is speaking about members of the Government, that the gentleman referred to in the paper from which he is reading, is the hon. Member's father?

Mr. Shinwell: If hon. Members wish to deny that then, here is the hon. Member for Farnham (Mr. G. Nicholson). He is alive. I saw him in this House only the other day. They are all connected. In fact, it is a family connection They are all linked up—cousins, fathers-in-law, mothers-in-law, daughters-in-law and the rest of it. It is a family affair. British industry is in the hands of a Tory clique all linked up with each other, and when some of them get hard up they look


around for the daughter of some wealthy person in order to replenish their coffers. It is ah old trick. They are trying to put it across us. Who do they think we are? [Interruption.] Of course, hon. Members do not like it but that is only the beginning. I will tell hon. Members what they like. They like to hold on to what they have got, and when the public in this country, as a result of certain investigations, have discovered what right hon. and hon. Members opposite possess in this country, the amount of wealth in their position—the largest amount of wealth in this country owned by a comparatively small section of the community—there will be a change in public opinion which will be quite sufficient to topple some right hon. and hon. Gentlemen off their perch.
May I offer a few observations on the future trade prospects? It is assumed that these monopolistic undertakings are highly efficient. They are nothing of the sort. It is assumed that they are enterprising in character. That is not true. Take, for example, I.C.I. A speech delivered by Lord McGowan the other day was extensively quoted in "The Times," at advertising rates, paid for out of the profits that should have gone to the shareholders, or perhaps to the reduction of prices to consumers. In the course of that speech, he praised himself and bragged about the achievements of I.C.I. What are their great achievements? Most of the patents they use, have been derived from abroad when they could have been developed in this country if they had been enterprising. Take for example all the bragging about the production of hydrogen-heated oil at Billingham. Even now, after many years of agitation and pressure and encouragement, they have not developed the Fisher-Tropsch process.

Mr. Spearman: The hon. Member has referred to Lord McGowan's speech. I am not denying that I.C.I. is a monopoly but Lord McGowan did say:
Personally I have not the slightest objection to an impartial investigation into the whole matter.
He went on to say:
It may not be inappropriate for me to suggest that similar steps should be taken in connection with trade unions with a view to determining the effect on industry resulting from any alleged restrictive practices in the use of labour.

Mr. Shinwell: I am not for a moment suggesting that Lord McGowan would object to a commission of inquiry into the operations of cartels, but it depends on the nature of the inquiry. Will there be access to all the material, to their arrangements with foreign-owned firms, to all they did before the war, and to their technical processes and the like, in order to discover whether any technical skill is really being used by I.C.I. and similar undertakings? I was referring to this hydrogenation process. Who is responsible for encouraging this process but the State itself? It is heavily subsidised by the State. Where is the private capital that flows into new and developing industry? A great deal more could be said about the inefficiency of some of these monopolistic undertakings.
I and my friends are as anxious about the future of British trade as hon. Members opposite, because despite a difference of opinion as to the method of approach, our people depend upon it so much, as indeed does everybody in the country. Whether one takes coal, iron, steel or textiles, or anything else, unless we can be sure of more happy prospects for British trade, it is a poor look-out for everybody. We want to build up to the maximum use of our resources. How often has that been said by myself and others in the House. There is general agreement on it in the House. I do not suggest that hon. Members opposite do not want to see a high standard of living in this country, but I think their method of approach is wrong. That is the difference between us. I think they are as well-intentioned as we are about raising the standard of life of the people of this country.
The other week in the Budget Debate I remarked that there is a vested interest in obsolescence in this country so far as industry is concerned. Some figures have been presented to me, taken from official reports, which are most alarming. Taking the period of years before the war—the war years cannot be taken because there was a boosting-up during that period—one discovers that efficient production based on man-hours was far in excess, in the U.S.A. and in most foreign countries, particularly Germany and Russia, of this country. To take coal, some reference has been made to the Anglo-Polish coal situation in the course of this Debate. Even in Poland, which was regarded as


backward, technically and mechanically, production before the war bounded up on the basis of man output, far ahead of that of this country. That was not due to the fact that the miners in this country did not want to work harder, but to the fact that they had not the organisation and facilities for producing coal.
Take textiles. We need to do something about textiles, particularly cotton textiles, if we are to retain world markets, and hon. Members opposite are as anxious as we are to recapture and increase them. To do that, efficiency has to be improved, and we are very far behind. There is iron and steel; indeed, there is not a single item of production I can discover in these statistics in regard to which we have improved our position in comparison with other countries. It is a deplorable state of affairs, and we must do something about it.
If I am asked the question, "Do you propose to nationalise all these industries, and do you think that they will gain in efficiency by nationalisation?" my reply is a very straight one. I am not suggesting nationalisation at the moment, Mr. Deputy-Speaker, so I am not raising the question of legislation. I am merely giving an illustration. I do not suggest that nationalisation in itself will promote efficiency any more than capitalism promotes efficiency. But I say that when a point is reached at which we have to face up to monopolies, and these monopolies cannot be broken up into small fractions or splinters—the trend is in the opposite direction and Lord Beaverbrook and his friends would do well to understand that—when, I say, we have to face monopolistic undertakings with restrictive practices, all raising prices, and with a lack of technical efficiency, because they have got into a monopolistic position, and when we have to consider whether the State should take over these monopolies, I say that whether you like it or not, the State must take a hand.
The hon. Member for South Croydon (Sir H. Williams) referred to the trade unions and the restrictive practices of trade unions. I invite the right hon. Gentleman to make an attack on the trade unions if he wants to do so. I invite him to repeat the argument used by the hon. Member for South Croydon, that the purpose of trade unions is to raise prices and to protect their labour. In order to antici-

pate what he may say, I express this opinion. When trade unions or workers combine in an industrial organisation in order to raise their wages, they are; not depriving the purchasing community of this country of anything they need. Indeed, the very fact that wages go up is of assistance to the community. That, indeed, is on all fours with the White Paper issued by the Government, in which they said that we had departed from the old policy of under-spending. Therefore, we have to spend. So when trade unions combine to keep up wages, they are assisting the Government to promote further trade. As regards the trade union practice of preventing would-be entrants from coming into an industry—it did not operate during the war—it was gradually being abolished before the war. If it is to be completely eliminated from trade union practices, an assurance must be given to workers in particular industries, who are organised in particular trade unions, that if other people come in, the conditions of those already in the industry will not be worsened. That is fair, that is the purpose of trade unionism. The cases are not analogous at all. The position of trade unions is quite unlike that of a monopolistic undertaking.
I have spoken at length, but the arguments had to be advanced, and I have done so in view of the position that is likely to confront us in the post-war years and adversely affect the people of this country, as regards exports, the proper use of our resources, and keeping our end up in all the four corners of the world. Regarding it in that light, from a purely national point of view, just as much as Members opposite, I felt it essential to promote these views. If the right hon. Gentleman thinks I have been a little harsh on him, because I have referred to his associations with monopolistic undertakings, all he requires to do, and I shall apologise to him afterwards if he does it, is to declare that he will no longer associate himself, even if he is out of the Government, as he is likely to be before long, with any such interests again.

6.15 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. Lyttelton): I have always been an admirer of the speeches of the hon. Member for Stoke (Mr. Ellis Smith) on industrial subjects, and of the sincerity which he shows in dealing with them. I


am also a great admirer of the Parliamentary performances of the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell). They are very fine. To-day, I confess, I was a little disappointed by the political extravaganza in which he has indulged, and at finding myself taking part in the hon. Member's Election campaign at Seaham. But, be that as it may, and although the facts which he advanced were nearly as bad as the taste in. which they were put forward, I feel that, as he has made a personal attack on me, I ought very shortly to rebut some of those charges. He went so far as to mention two companies with which I was connected, one of which I think, it would be said, I predominantly managed for 20 years, the British Metal Corporation. He made a lot of cheap points, and said that it was a monopoly. There are one or two Members who know that this firm had certainly 40 competitors engaged in exactly the same business. If that is the hon. Member's definition of monopoly, I suggest the purchase of "Cassell's Dictionary," which will put him in possession of the truth.
He made a number of other points about these associations, and made a number of sneers. Is he aware that the British Metal Corporation was formed at the request of the Government, and that the Treasury now have the right to appoint a director to the board? Is that monopoly? He made the point, "Where does the small man come in with regard to these great conglomerations of capital?" We all know that the small man in the twentieth century is not likely to be able to find 20,000,000 dollars, which many people think is about the capital investment needed to develop a new copper-mining affair. All these points are simply dialectical fireworks and squibs. The hon. Member referred to things like cement works. Who is the small man engaged in making cement? What Lord Beaverbrook has been talking about is the small man in quite another connection—small retailers and so forth. On this topic, I might mention the remarks made by the right hon. Member for Central Wandsworth (Mr. Bevin) about tin. I daresay the House knows that I was one of the people who organised the International Tin Agreement. In those negotiations I represented the Government of Nigeria, and I signed the International Tin Agree-

ment on behalf of that Government. It was signed by other Governments—the Government of Malaya, the Government of the Dutch East Indies, the Government of Siam, the Government of Bolivia, and so forth. It is a published document. The scheme may be a bad one—human beings make mistakes. If it is a bad one, it seems to me a poor argument for the State engaging in the tin business. If it is a good arrangement, why blame me? The right hon. Gentleman shot a lot of rather attractively painted arrows into the air. Unfortunately, like some of the enemy's bombs, they fell into an open field. There is no more competitive business than the metal business, in which I was engaged. To anybody who has the slightest knowledge of the trade, this suggestion of a monopoly is farcical.
I do not want to emulate the hon. Member, and try to raise a great deal of prejudice on a very slender foundation, and make Election addresses to the House on the subject. I would like to make an entirely objective approach. Part of the case is complicated; the subject is full of difficulties. It has ramifications in many directions. I will deal with it in the most objective way. I think that everybody, in any part of the House, agrees that we want an expansionist economic policy. In fact, to expect the markets of 1938 to absorb the productivity which we have now reached, and which has been so greatly accelerated by war, partly under the stimulus of the need to survive, would be indulging in a counsel of despair. I would remind hon. Members that the national income of the United States has more than doubled in four years. There is no means of absorbing such a production if we look to markets of that size. We must look to expanding markets. I think there will be no difference between hon. Members in any part of the House and myself when I say that cartels, or trade rings, which are designed to create artificial scarcity, and especially to raise prices and make undue profits, are anti-social. By "anti-social" I mean something which, at the expense of the common good, serves sectional interests. I would look with the greatest suspicion at rings which seek to forbid new entrants into an industry, and I would require a lot of convincing that those are beneficial and not harmful. I would also require a lot of convincing that arrangements to force the consumer to buy all that he requires from


a ring, and to put him under certain disabilities if he buys outside a ring, are not harmful. All those things are under the greatest suspicion.
I would like to say how some of these things come about. We should not be too ready to impute blame to those who engage in some restrictive practices, whether on the capital side or on the labour side. You must recognise, in fairness, that some of these restrictions are the natural protection which, on the one side, the employer makes against bankruptcy, and, on the other side, the trade union, or the worker, makes against the incidence of unemployment. Everybody knows that there are restrictive practices connected with the employment, the re-engagement, and the demarcation of labour, which are sedulously, and in my opinion rightly, defended by the trade unions. The hon. Member for Seaham asked if I was going to attack the trade unions. That was a rhetorical point. Of course I am not. But it is a fact that the full product of a man's energies is sometimes withheld, jobs are prolonged, and full effort is not put into them, in order to maintain the level of employment. Is that surprising? Is it not the natural defence which each man makes against a disaster which it is found difficult to overcome? Of course it is. Complaints are made about difficulties of demarcation, of getting an electrician to connect a refrigerator with a water tap. That demarcation is designed to prevent the skilled man's wages from coming down. It is, in its nature, a very restrictive practice. The real cure, apart from the extravaganzas in which my hon. Friend has indulged, is to provide a high level of employment, with a high individual output, high wages, and reasonable profits. The positive thing is best.
I am very anxious to set the thing out fairly, and I would like to turn to the less sinister aspects of restrictive practices. There is nothing to the public advantage, nothing that is pro-social, about producing things that are unwanted. In fact, under a competitive system of prices the effect of producing what is unwanted is merely to force down prices, very likely below any possible cost of production. In that event, a section of the industry will be bankrupt, and the labour employed in that section will be dispersed. Some people, who are not economists, and who are more fond of using the English

language than economists usually are, describe the production of unwanted goods as "waste." They are not far wrong, because into that production have gone capital and labour, scientific developments perhaps, and raw materials. In fact, in every productive theory the element of restriction enters in, because everybody who is going to produce anything knows well that one of the first things he has to think about is, "How much will the market absorb at any price I am able to make it at?" That is just a fact.
There are several other aspects of this matter of restrictive practices, which I would like to illustrate. Let us take the liquidation of stocks. It is undeniable that very large stocks have been created in the war in certain commodities and certain articles. I would like to bring out this point by an illustration. The Army will have at the end of the Japanese war, a great number of Army vehicles, whether lorries or passenger cars. They will be redundant. It is quite possible to say, "We will throw that stock on the market at once, and see what they will fetch." Most hon. Members would agree that such action would have a bad effect upon the producers of motor cars, upon their programme of production, and upon the possible employment which they will offer in that light industry. So I think we would all agree that it would be wrong to throw that stock on the market at the prices it will fetch. The stock should be liquidated in an orderly manner. But do not let us delude ourselves that that is not a restrictive practice. It withholds from the consumer something which is available and already made, which he wants. I would ask hon. Members to examine whether, in the desire to protect the consumer, which we all have, they are not, on the other side, paying less attention than they should to the interests of the producer, and of the worker, in particular, who produces the goods.

Mr. Shinwell: My right hon. Friend is making a most interesting point. But surely there is a difference between the State surveying the position as a whole, and saying, "We are not going to liquidate all these stocks, because it is unsatisfactory to do so," and a private concern adopting that policy.

Mr. Lyttelton: I really must disagree with my hon. Friend. The illustration happens to be one in which the State


owns the surplus stock. I could multiply these instances in regard to thousands of different things of which the stocks are not held by the State, and I am not making any controversial point. I am only trying to explain that, in the interests of current employment, it is sometimes not only necessary and beneficial, but absolutely essential to prevent stocks being thrown on the market, and thereby disrupting the course of present employment. Yet such an action is a restrictive practice. I go further. Let us take the case of the motor vehicles. Nobody has suggested, I hope, that the State should permanently remove them from the market, that taxpayers' money should be wasted or that the community should not, in an orderly manner, make use of these particular things. I say you want a plan by which the current production of automobiles is kept slightly under current demand, in order that the stock may be liquidated at a reasonable price and fill the gaps which current production cannot do. What is that? It is a restrictive practice. In other connections, the hon. Member would no doubt point the finger of scorn, if some unfortunate capitalist, who has had no notion of what the hon. Member was going to say and cannot defend himself, did it, and would say that that was highly naughty and indefensible.
I would like now to refer to geographical arrangements, and, again, I want to be quite fair. I begin by referring to a geographical arrangement which does not appear to me to be sinister. Let us suppose—and it has happened many times—that a new process has been invented, worked out and developed in England and that a foreign country wants to manufacture that particular product within its own frontiers. The foreign company comes to the British company which has developed the process and says "I want, for a fee, to make this particular product in my own country." The British firm says "We will do that. You shall have the process and we will lend you the engineers and you can make the product, but, in making our patent available to you, we wish to make it a condition of the contract that you do not sell the result of our own process in competition with us in this country, or take from us, with our own process and our own product, some of the natural markets which we have

always been accustomed to supply." That is put into the contract, and it seems to me to be only common sense. It is a geographical arrangement, and I would remind hon. Members that the free flow of scientific information in an industry is absolutely necessary. The finger of scorn has been pointed at these geographical arrangements, with regard to Germany, and I may say that there is no evidence whatever that any British firm has entered into an arrangement which restricted production of strategic materials. There is no evidence of that whatever but there are some allegations made, which have not yet been investigated, in America. There is not a shred or tittle of evidence in this country.

Mr. Ellis Smith: Not in aluminium?

Mr. Lyttelton: No, not in aluminium. I was discussing a case where these arrangements existed. At any rate, I can speak from memory. I can remember three of these arrangements—optical instruments, magnesium and beryllium. It so happens that, in these industries, German research has always been in advance of the world, and we are faced with a great dilemma—the sort of dilemma to which the hon. Member has referred. It is this—Shall we try to work out another process and abandon this old form of production? It may well be that a war will break out and we may find our self short of this particular product. On the other hand, shall we allow a firm to make it and make an arrangement whereby we get from the foreign firm the advantage of their engineers, but, in doing so and thus providing employment in this country, we are obliged to enter into a restrictive practice which prohibits us from entering certain markets. I do not think that is very naughty: I think it is very sensible, but you are always faced with this dilemma. What I am trying to say is that the difference between a restrictive practice or cartel which is beneficial to the country, provides employment and interchanges information and increases scientific development, and those which strangle, stifle and get the industry by the throat, as my hon. Friend said, is a very fine line.
I want to say one word more about patents, a subject which is very relevant to this kind of discussion. We all know that if an invention is made, and the owner of that invention seeks, by a series


of protective measures, to prevent farther inventions in that field from fructifying that is anti-social. On the other hand, everybody knows, equally, the commercial maxim that it is "odds on the infringer." If you throw open the invention, and the patents to every infringer, you will have destroyed the value of the invention to the inventor and he will not be prepared to devote his whole life and his money to invention if, at the end of the day he knows that, owing to some implacable sentence, the whole of his work is to be infringed by others. There, again, you have an extremely difficult line to draw, as between the proper protection of the inventor and the exploitation of his process, and preventing the community as a whole being exploited by strangling new inventions coming into that field
This, very shortly, is how I see the whole field of restrictive practices and cartels. I want now to add what I consider is a practical answer. I think it is extremely dangerous, in a doctrinaire and overcoat way, to attack the thousand and one questions, in all forms of production which enter into the problem. I go so far as to say that, without some form of restriction, you cannot have a policy of full employment and cannot attain full employment. There is nothing but disaster if you allow no restriction. On the other hand, we should prevent, by any means that are necessary, the creation of artificial scarcity merely for the sake of putting up profits. The hon. Member opposite rather annoyed me by using words which are entirely unjustified. He spoke about me and said it was all humbug and that I did not believe in any of these things. I can tell him that I would not stand at this Box and use arguments which I did not believe in.

Mr. Shinwell: The right hon. Gentleman has misunderstood me. What I said, in reference to attacks on major monopolies by Lord Beaverbrook, was that, in view of the fact that so many colleagues of his were associated with monopolistic undertakings, it was all humbug for him to attack them.

Mr. Lyttelton: The hon. Gentleman will no doubt read his speech to-morrow but the general imputation was that right hon. Gentlemen on the Front Bench did engage in monopolistic practices.

Mr. Shinwell: indicated assent.

Mr. Lyttelton: —and that it is mere humbug to say they wish to control monopolies and cartels. That is the tenor of his argument. It is an imputation of grave insincerity. I mean exactly what I say about this, but I differ very much from the method which the hon. Gentleman advocates and his manner of presenting it. I believe the first answer—and I do not say it is the last—to this problem is to let the light of publicity beat on these arrangements. You will find some quite startling results in the other direction. You will find some practices which are certainly bad practices, and which I would not attempt to defend, and which I think ought to be stamped out. You will also find a lot of restrictive practices which are highly beneficial to employment. I know that there are many, whose business has been assailed, who would welcome inquiry. It would do a great deal to remove the inflammation from a subject which cannot be dealt with by means of slogans, because you cannot do things by slogans, but must have an examination of the facts.
In conclusion, let me say we must keep in front of our minds this very simple proposition—are we trying, at all costs, to protect the consumer? Are we doing that, or does there, somewhere in the back of the hon. Member's mind, enter the idea that it may be necessary to give some measure of protection to the producer and the workpeople whom he employs?

6.41 p.m.

Mr. Austin Hopkinson: Dealing first with the latter part of the right hon. Gentleman's speech, in which he made some remarks on the subject of patents, I may mention that I have probably taken out more patents than any other Member of the House, and have come to the conclusion that, on the whole, we can really do without patents altogether because the protection thus afforded to an inventor, if that inventor is not backed up by large sums of money, is largely illusory. It is extremely rarely that I have been held up by patents owned by competitors since owing to the immense bulk of technical publications, and patent specifications on the files, an anticipation can almost always be discovered after a search. With regard to the general question, I should like to hear what is the Government's position on one or two points. Of course, I do not agree with


the speech of the hon. Member for Seaham (Mr. Shinwell), in which he laid down the law on things about which he obviously knows nothing. I am rather notoriously critical, not only of the big combines, but even of the right hon. Gentleman himself. The question which really concerns this House, in relation to combines, is the political reactions of their growth. So long as we get a fair deal from the Government of the country, so long as political advantage cannot be wangled by big combines, so long can we small independent concerns compete successfully with them.
Apart from this danger of the misuse of political influence the combines are perfectly legitimate affairs. I do not like them, but there is nothing necessarily bad in them. I wish the hon. Member for Seaham were present, because I could tell him about some of those wicked people to whom he was referring. In the ordinary course of business, I am continually dealing with some of these so-called trusts. I am shocked to hear that, in dealing with the English Steel Corporation, for example, I was apparently lending myself to crime as a sort of accessory after the fact. I deal with them because I get what I want much better from them than from others. That is my sole reason for dealing with them. Again, the hon. Gentleman went out of his way to abuse, in his absence, a gentleman who is a Member of this House on the ground that he happens to be related to the Chairman of the Wigan Coal Corporation, which, added to its other sins apparently, is connected with the Lancashire Steel Corporation. Personally, all my prejudices are against this sort of thing. I think the trusts are liable to abuse but they are run by perfectly good people to deal with in business. The Wigan Coal Corporation are very good customers of mine, and as the Noble Lord has been abused behind his back by the hon. Member for Seaham, I can assure the House that Lord Crawford is not only chairman of the company but he is a real working chairman. The last time I met him, I was speaking to him about his pits, and found that he really knows his pits. He is no guineapig director. He knows his job and fully justifies his position. I merely mention that because of the vulgar abuse from the hon. Member for Seaham. Nor does

the fact that a Member of this House happens to have married a sister of the nobleman in question justify the hon. Member for Seaham in attacking that Member.
I have indicated the danger which I want the right hon. Gentleman to assure us will not arise. I hope he will see that these great combinations do not use their power to wangle political advantage which would enable them to crush us small men. I assure him that, if we are capable of conducting our own businesses, we can put up a good fight against the biggest concern in the world, provided there is not this wangle. In the case of one corporation—it has nothing to do with the right hon. Gentleman himself, and I will not mention its name—there has been, from its very inception, a sort of feeling in industry that everything was not quite fair; and that the number of eminent politicians who go on to the board of that concern seem to be totally unnecessary for the conduct of its business. A certain degree of suspicion arises, when we find not only an excessive number of ex-Ministers on the board, but also a certain excess of legislative action in the House of Commons that had helped to justify a capitalisation which seemed, in the first instance, altogether excessive. Almost at the same time and from the same stable there came along another combine which was an utter failure, and has been an utter failure ever since. I attribute—and perhaps I am entirely wrong—the failure of that second corporation to the fact that in Committee on a Bill I smashed a new Clause proposed by the promoter of the combine. I merely mention that second instance to show that we have some justification for our suspicions when, taking two promotions from the same stable, we find that one which had political advantages succeeded, while the other, which did not get political advantages, failed.
There was another foolish thing which the hon. Member for Seaham said with regard to Imperial Chemical Industries when he declared that these great combines are extremely inefficient. I do not like Imperial Chemical Industries, but I buy things from them and sell things to them, and anyone who has dealings with them knows that it is utterly untrue to say that they are inefficient. I loathe them, but I do business with them because they are so efficient. I am giving the


House some idea of the degree of knowledge of the hon. Member for Seaham in making all those allegations. Of every single thing he has spoken about he has shown himself totally ignorant. The more ignorant he was the more offensive he became. He had to turn his abuse on to people who were not here. It does not add to the dignity of this House or to its usefulness when that sort of thing takes place.
Do he and his colleagues realise that the real danger is a political danger rather than an industrial and commercial danger? I want to be fair to the people concerned. If you find in your hands an immense concern with a capitalisation which is not justified, you know that an immense number of people—those whom you employ and small shareholders: —will have a very severe shock if you do not keep your concern running. Mistakes have been made and there are all these people affected by those mistakes. Are we not aware of the temptation, it may be, to a man if he thinks that he can push certain Bills through Parliament and thus save the situation? The temptation is very great. It does not need much imagination, in view of the trouble that would be caused if such a concern crashed, to see that a man might almost be excused for using political influence to prevent it. But the politician who helps him can never be excused. There is absolutely no justification whatsoever for him, and if the politician is subsequently found on the board of the concern, he should be regarded as an outcast.
The danger of trusts and cartels is purely political. For do not think for a moment that we small people will be crushed by trusts. We will not. After the last war, when the great slump came, nearly all the big people in my industry

crashed. They went bankrupt. They called in some celebrated chartered accountant, who solemnly sat down and informed the boards of what they knew perfectly well, namely, that they were "on the rocks." Meanwhile, we little people went on, quite prosperous, all through the bad slump. The reason was that if you are at sea and a storm breaks out unexpectedly it is well not to have too much top-hamper. We were always under-capitalised rather than over-capitalised and always weathered the storm.
I hope that I have not been too discursive about this subject, but I have had to speak on the spur of the moment. Being in the position of a small industrialist myself, entirely independent, dealing with these great cartels, I wanted to point out that practically all of them are extremely efficient. The technical side of Imperial Chemical Industries is first rate, but Imperial Chemical Industries may become a political danger. Therefore, I hope that my right hon. Friend will give us an assurance that the danger is fully recognised by the Government and that every possible attempt will be made, if this Government is returned after the Election, to see that that danger is provided for, if necessary, by legislation.

Question put, and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Committee of the Whole House, for To-morrow.—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

ADJOURNMENT

Resolved:

"That this House do now adjourn."—[Major Sir James Edmondson.]

Adjourned accordingly at Four Minutes to Seven o'Clock.